Diary of a Loser Read online

  *

  Eddie, oh do I feel like shooting myself!

  So that they welcome me as an April Fools’ Day boy – happy, excited – into a guest room where every turn and movement mean something unusual, September-or April-like.

  *

  This civilization must be destroyed everywhere on earth – in Russia, in China, and in America. Destroy it – this goal must unite all those dissatisfied. And none of the privileged classes, none of the workers’ dictatorship – why should the factory workers be better than anybody else? It’s nonsense. Better is he who hates this civilization more. We don’t answer the question – what shall we build on the cleared ground? We say, «Destruction is our goal.» And it’s not just to the ground as it says in the «International.» We’ll dig deeper, uprooting, leaving behind no trace, just dust – destroy it like the conquerors destroyed ancient cities and then plowed them under.

  *

  They will all come: Hooligans and those who are timid (timid ones are good in combat), drug-pushers, and those who hand out bordello ads. They will come – masturbators and lovers of porno magazines. They will come – those who wander alone in the museum halls, and those who leaf through books alone in the halls of free Christian libraries. They will come – those who, with no money to buy anything, loiter away their time at Macy’s and Alexander’s. They will come-those who drink just coffee for two hours straight at McDonald’s and stare sadly out the window. They will come – those have lost in love, money, and work, and those who were unfortunate to be born in poor families.

  They will come – those who are sick of everything, who already wasted part of their lives on the absurd, endless work in a bank or in some department store. They will come – the coal-miners who are sick of the mines, factory workers who hate their factory. They will come – the hobos and some staid family people who are sick of their families. They will come – soldiers from the army, students from their campuses. They will come-the brave and the strong from all fields of life, they’ll come to distinguish themselves and to find glory.

  They will come – the homosexuals, walking in pairs, hugging each other; young men and women in love will come, and so will the lesbians in flamboyant clothes. They will come – the actors, and so will the artists, and musicians, and writers whose work doesn’t sell.

  Everyone will call in. They’ll take the arms, and they’ll put an end to this order once and for all.

  *

  And city by city is conquered by the revolutionary forces of losers. Giving heed to the blood which flowed through the veins of many generations of losers, the soldiers of the imperial army tear off their imperial insignia and with ecstatic eyes and flowers on their hats, they return to their own tribe, they embrace their kin.

  City by city, starting with the explosion in the Great New York, America is becoming free, and I, E.L., march in the lead column and everyone knows and loves me. And my hair is faded from the revolutionary summer.

  And everything anti-human is crumbling down – the banks, the offices, the courts, the factories, all the chemicals, metals and other shit like that.

  *

  I don’t want to fuck her (the Bald Diva) anymore. She’s not my piece.

  Doesn’t excite me. Barely fucked her twice. All the same, I look at her as something crude, like a thickset wench with big ass and thighs. It doesn’t excite me. I’m an unhappy man, right? And it turns out that I don’t need females. And why is that that I choose the busty ones, why? The busty and crude ones?

  My ideal, my secret, has finally formed within me now – a tender girl or boy with un-swollen limbs, slim, fragile, who lives in the world as though it’s an enchanted garden. I stared – enraptured (not sexually) – at a rich lady’s son sitting at his mother’s birthday party, wearing a gray little jacket, the same color vest, a bright tie, and black velvet trousers. He had long dark hair – an eleven-year-old prince.

  The females, they’re just good buddies to me, that’s all. I now understand all my torments. And the Bald Diva left with my craziness stuck all over her. Now, that you understand yourself so well, Edward, stop dragging the females to your place, picking them up at parties or elsewhere.

  *

  If, when awake on a rainy spring morning, and after you’ve stayed in your bed a little – thinking, listening to music – you are suddenly able to say to yourself honestly: «After all, I’m nobody in this life-I’m shit and dust,» then it’s too early to give up on yourself. But it has to be honest – a confession to yourself, not for others.

  Arithmetic

  Spring. I’m hungry.

  The millionaire’s housekeeper has lots of food and a variety of it, too. But I want my own food. That’s why having stolen 950 from her piggy bank, I leave.

  My remaining money is $1.50.

  I buy a chicken at the store. It weighs 2.66 pounds, priced at 690 per pound, I pay $1.84. I have 610 left.

  For 600, I get a pack of Kents at a cigarette booth, and I go home happy.

  I have one penny in my pocket.

  *

  In the bathroom at night, I smile in the mirror at myself – the comedy of life.

  «That’s right, buddy, isn’t it a comedy?» It is, for sure. Yes, a comedy. Honest to God, it’s funny to find yourself suddenly in America, in the bathroom at night, living alone, and you smile. You even laugh, in fact.

  And the light? I didn’t turn it on – it comes through the kitchen.

  *

  I’m waiting for a decision from this Macmillan place, I’m waiting… and before that, I was waiting to hear from other places.

  «Be patient, be patient and see what you’ll get. Once on a beautiful day, you’ll wake up old as a rag, hurting all over, and by then your hand couldn’t hold a gun.»

  *

  Ah, how often I’ve dreamt and still am dreaming about beautiful, terribly beautiful girls. But I don’t have them, and when I finally get them, when I have money to buy them and mount them to fuck them, I think my only desire will be to kill them and nothing else.

  To kill them because they didn’t come to me, they neglected me when I was young and gifted like a flower, when I believed in the blinding love – the sun. But come they will – when I become a vile old rat.

  *

  Yesterday they brought in old and elegant furniture – proper chairs upholstered with cherry-colored velvet, a huge table on carved legs, a stained-glass dresser, and a bar.

  For a month now, the entire three-room apartment has belonged to me. My roommate, the Jewish kid, left. Now the millionaire’s housekeeper pays a third of the rent and still lives at her place of work. It’s possible that with the help of this furniture and money she wants to capture me gradually. She has her objectives. My job is not to give in.

  Meanwhile, life is gradually returning to normal. And though I have no money to get bread, and I totally depend on the millionaire’s housekeeper, I feel bourgeois.

  And what of it, that’s the way it ought to be – think I – admiring the twenty bottles of alcohol that I’ve already put in the bar. It’s impossible for life to stand still, it must go somewhere. Let it be going according to my efforts and under my supervision – after all, it’s me trying to rebuild my own harmony destroyed by Elena. It’s true to be sure – this harmony will also collapse. Such is man’s lot. And I drink a tumbler of sweet alcohol, a full tumbler, like a child: «To good fortune!»

  *

  In order to raise his spirits, he went on early-morning walks. Today, he set an objective – to cover thirty blocks to Macmillan Press, to check «how are things,» and then walk back.

  The wind blew, the press was where it was supposed to be; he tried to penetrate its recesses with his inner eye, he strained himself but very quickly understood that it was useless, and he turned to go.

  Exactly at that moment, two postal workers exerting themselves – rolled out past him a huge tub of mail. There were no letters, just parcels, thick, same-size parcels. «Manuscripts,» he unde
rstood, horrified. A tub of manuscripts! Two or more – three cubic meters of manuscripts have vanished in the recesses of the press. The vastness of human activity made him noxious.

  He pulled on his cap and took off. With the press at his back, he was still searching in the bowels of this building for the captive of two months – his nervous book.

  *

  On a hot sunny spring day it’s good to go into a shaded bedroom and lie down for a nap. And have the vague sounds of car horns and voices waft in from the street. It’s good to fall asleep with you, embracing you, slim you. We wake up and it’s already dark out, the street lights are on. You’ll put on your lovely, silly dress and we’ll go to a circus to see the Lilliputians and the animals.

  *

  I work every day now. I return exhausted. The New York Times and glossy magazines have beautiful girls in them, yes, in all the ads. They’re pretty, sleek in appearance, alluring. They’re just the ones to fuck and to enjoy life with. But no, the others, the rich and idle, fuck them and feel up the pretty girls during the lazy summer afternoons, while you have to drive in the rain and clouds, siteseeing American dull spots and the rain pours down onto the car. You’re a laborer, poor, oppressed, ethnic minority, fixing x-ray machines, drilling holes in the concrete, tightening bolts, painting for B B Company. And you’ll never fucking be able to publish your harmful book, you won’t be able rise out of the shit and mud. And you’ll die just like that – a low-paid laborer in a cap, schlepping with pensive eyes to all these Long Islands in the mornings…

  *

  The clean rich – they’re contemptuous of those who masturbate. Because the rich don’t masturbate, you see. They always have someone to fuck. They fuck the beautiful ones – the highest quality. This is the tough truth which must be faced squarely.

  *

  And so it’s all over. The American bourgeois publishing house Macmillan has refused to publish my book. And the woman Katie didn’t help. After the telephone call from my agent, I went to plaster and paint a ceiling at a rich house. I stood on a ladder with my head up all day long, got exhausted by nighttime and on the way home I sadly swore in a summer’s late night. It was Friday, and the buzzing swarm of slaves was sucked in by restaurants and theaters. I’ve wasted almost a half year on Macmillan. Forty more times like that, and I’ll be a useless gizzard. It’s terrifying!

  *

  So the rich boy will die of cancer and I don’t fucking care.

  Yes, he’s beautiful and I’m sorry, but I don’t fucking care!

  For example, when I painted the ceiling at their place, I went to get a vacuum from the basement. There, locked in, was a dog the size of a year-old calf, and behind a screen, two puppies, one hundred pounds each. And there are two other grown dogs of the same breed walking around the house. They’re huge: the stench, trash, dirt – it’s worse than stables. The rich live as if in an outhouse. What’s the use of all the carpets and tapestries and perfuming their necks and behind their ears? Their place is still an outhouse. And their dirty rags are everywhere. Hence the cancer – from being idle and from the stench in the house. So, he’ll die, the rich boy – and that’s the way it should be. Why is it that we – I – paint their ceiling and pick up trash, and the Yugoslav lugs and packs their stuff, and the Chinese is a house slave? Why is it that we work while they do nothing in their rotten nest, they don’t work and feed their sponger-dogs? Is it because they’re more talented than the Yugoslav and I?

  No, they’re not. The Yugoslav can reason intelligently, and I too am not among the least – I have a clever pair of hands, and I have brains. And the old Chinese guy can play the violin and the piano. We do everything for them, and what do they do for us?

  Why are they given the money?

  Maybe it’s God, maybe not, but the cancer came in at the right time – it’s something like retribution. Let the rich boy die. I’ll be glad even. What the hell, why must I pretend that I’m moved, that I sympathize, that I’m sorry. I’m not moved, I don’t sympathize, and I’m not sorry! My own life – in earnest, the only one – is knocked down by all these fuckers. Go ahead, die, the doomed boy! No amount of cobalt or money will help you. Cancer does not defer to money. If you give it a billion even, it won’t retract. And that’s fair. At least in that everyone is equal. Just like the forty-four-year-old Moscow plumber Tolik, the boy will die.

  *

  I always look at people’s faces on the street. There are very few who could kill. These are not necessarily morose or savage looking men. Among those who could kill I often encounter women, bespectacled nerds, even a multitude of children.

  «Could kill,» as I understand it, are those who could kill right now, this very moment, regardless of their strength or of anybody’s strength, regardless of the fact that they could be killed. «Could kill» is a definite inborn, blood inherited, and a realized resolve to kill.

  It’s better not to bother such people. It’s better not to demand money from them if you’re a mugger. It’s better not to swear at them or shove them – it’s better to leave them alone. With that kind, you can’t stop half way if you yourself are not determined to kill. Leave them, go away while you’re still in one piece, and don’t look back. If you won’t kill him, he’ll kill you.

  It’s been three years since I realized that I could kill. I’m firmly aware of that whenever I go out on the street. That’s why I always carry a knife. I won’t think twice about it. I won’t waiver. I won’t think about a possible punishment. If they touch me – I’ll kill them. That’s why I live with a peace of mind and am un-afraid of anything. And I go wherever I like.

  In general, however, I’m quite harmless.

  Classification

  The poetess L. is a nice gal. She’s nothing special, though. Class D. I have them all in class D right now.

  Sonya – the Jewish girl from my months of loneliness – used to be in D, in America however, she’s E because she’s a Russian. My agent C. is definitely a B, but I haven’t fucked her – we have a strictly business relationship.

  I very much want to run up this ladder and make a transition into at least class C, but a total absence of money, success and, most important, connections stand in my way. The best place to meet people is at parties, of course, but again I’m invited to D parties only.

  The millionaire’s housekeeper stands apart – she probably belongs to the category of angels, not women. A sexless peasant angel, standing on the side of the road leading toward church. I respect her more and more. She’s my only relative on this earth that’s why I exclude her from classification.

  Almost all the girls and women from the Italian journalist’s entourage – he wrote an article about me – are class C, and some are even B.

  Class A are very beautiful, very talented, and very rich, I met some them at a few parties when I had just arrived in America and still had rich acquaintances.

  I believe that below D class there’s still E, F and maybe I. Yes, I’m sure that’s the case. So, my girls get to be right in the middle. They’re medium.

  I believe there exists only one creature above A class. That’s the one I’m after. But I have no idea where that is.

  *

  A lousy hot summer. The dead season.

  My book is at four different publishers at the same time where it’s being sluggishly read. Again, I’m waiting. Days go by, and there you have the everyday murder that civilization subjects us to.

  Last month, I whitewashed and plastered two apartments; now, once a week, I vacuum and scrub the millionaire’s house for which they pay me medium wage. My life hardly moves, the only change in it is getting some free vegetation – sixteen green plants: the rich family has moved to San Francisco. There are two palmtrees among the plants. Watering the plants-my new chore-gives me pleasure, and while watering them, I also converse with them.

  The publishers are like dark towers looming in the backdrop of my consciousness, and I peer at these dark towers with hope and hatred. The
murderers!

  A writer

  A writer lived across the street. He had no curtains in his fifth-floor apartment – the writer lived openly. Almost every night, in one of his windows, precisely where his bed stood, a girl appeared – putting on or taking off her clothes. There was a new girl every few days. Some of them, having put on their clothes, left – they didn’t stay overnight; the others stayed and didn’t leave. In those cases, the alarm-clock rang in the writer’s apartment in the morning – the girls had to get up early to get to work (those were the kinds of girls the writer had). The writer wandered around naked, stumbling – half asleep – into furniture. He swore, cursing the girls and their work, feeling happy when they left, and falling asleep he promised never to get involved with them again. By nighttime, though, having had enough sleep, he again called some girl, invited her to come over and hear what new thing he had written. The writer, as you have obviously already understood, had a soft spot for sex. And this fact was plenty clear to the fifth floor residents in the house across the street.

  *

  Hotel Embassy, my most recent dwelling, was shut down because of sanitary and security considerations, because of its filth, brawls, robberies, terror and desolation inside. This was conveyed to me over the telephone by a short girl Teresa. «How could you live there, Edward?» the girl Teresa asked me. How could I? Just the way I did – I walked with a knife hidden in my boot. No one ever bothered me. I could live anywhere, no sweat. It’s a pity about the Hotel Embassy, and I feel sad about it – I’ve spent eight months of my life there – pretty good, memorable ones. In the morning, sun flooded through my window. Life is life. And even when it appears to be bad, it’s good.