Last Beer

It was the last sunny day of the summer. Though the summer had not been the happiest due to the relentless war with the Russians, the sun still possessed its quality to uplift Ivan's mind. He walked fast towards the Kiosk in the square and grabbed his favourite cigarettes, and lit one as he waited. He was on his way to a bar owned by his old school friend, Miras. It had been several summers and autumns since they finished school. Ivan went away from the village to study how to make films, while Miras started a small bar in the village. It was certainly not the first one, considering the long-lasting drinking tradition that everyone had been born into in that cold, icy village on the verge of Crimea. However, Miras’ bar was different; there were games, music, and a community of a variety of people. He had some friends who printed the western music onto x-ray film, which was a common practice in ex- Soviet countries. Miras’ old record player played these songs as if the singers were really far away and had developed a cold or fever while recording. Some days, the bar turned up the volume of the songs and danced every winter night until the snow melted in the morning. People could work all day and dance all night.

Years had passed, and now the bar was going to close. People didn’t have money for food and alcohol, though they craved both. More so, they had forgotten how to dance. Ivan had called Miras earlier that day; they wanted to get together again before they departed to different brigades - to have some last beers, and they wanted to know each other's story. All the women they met and made love to - Ivan in his travels to Europe and Miras in the bar. Both of them were very masculine and charming.

Ivan looked at the wide street that was almost empty, if not for the remnants of that evening drizzle which created a shiny reflection of the sunset on the street; so red that it reminded him of childhood for some reason. He was waiting for his other friend, Sam, who was from Nepal. It still puzzled Ivan why Sam joined him on his way back to his war-torn town. Well, it still looks beautiful, he thought. At least there is summer even though it's ending; sun peeked through the lonely buildings as Ivan laid his eyes on Sam, who was walking towards him with wide eyes and staggering but enthusiastic footsteps.

"Have I made you wait a long time?" Sam asked with a wide-eyed smile. 

“Nah it’s okay”

Ivan finished his cigarette and offered one to Sam. Sam said he had quit since it takes a toll on his stamina. 

“You barely have sex if any, why would you want to have so much stamina?” 

Ivan joked around as he lit another cigarette. Ivan’s laughter had a very infectious touch, it seemed like he was given orders to laugh, like it had a beginning, middle and end. He would start laughing and follow the same rhythm and pattern for 4-5 seconds and stop as if it is jump cut to silence. Sam likes Ivan’s laughter.

“Miras is a beast, he would make you smoke tonight for sure, also he has the best brewed beer, it calls for a cigarette.” 

Sam nodded as he put his earphones back in its case. His earphone case looked really modern and almost like a piece from a robot movie, Ivan wondered if it was too  for Sam. 

We could hear glasses breaking and people shouting from afar, as we reached Olga, Miras’ bar. Miras came running, opening the doors with a laughter louder than alarms. Ivan and Miras went onto an unbroken stream of conversations as they kept on shaking hands and hugging repeatedly. Sam seemed to be touched by their bromance. 

The bar seemed interesting. It had two floors and deep brown concrete walls, the first floor includes a bar counter. There are many drinks and glasses arranged somehow, with the bare minimum effort to fill stuff into the space. Then the staircase led one to the top floor filled with colourful old sofa settees; the place held the smells of smoke and sweat. Miras came looking for Sam as he hugged him close, 

“ Blyat, you are very short my friend. ” 

Sam certainly did not like the cocky guy who was half bald; yet he held a smile that was friendly. Ivan offered to start drinking which eased up the situation somehow. It seemed as if the whole town was in a drinking game. It was no secret that Miras was closing the bar. He is not getting enough imports or business due to the war, more so most of the town was empty. Everyone was running off or joining the military - the choice between these two depended on some undecipherable personality trait of the people, which no one could explain. Some left, some fought, the ones who could not do both told themselves stories and drank in tears.  

Miras and Ivan opened a bottle of vodka and started passing around following the beat of a song from the radio. Sam joined as much as he could, he felt his insides burning when he chugged a bit of the vodka. Miras kept drinking it as water. He leaned forward. 

“So.. Tell me about your time, Iva, You have been gone for three years now” 

A beat of silence as Ivan gulped a sip of beer. 

“Well, Yeah, I thought I would not come back. It was really perfect. Always sunny, even in winters, the sunlight is such a drug in itself. So many people from around the world see Sam and I used to play beer pong everyday when we were roommates. We had people from Canada, Mexico, Columbia, it was a constant party, and just making films, getting drunk, smoking up, making love; it felt so long and sudden at the same time”. 

Miras was listening without blinking. He had an anxious reaction to everything, he always called for more shots as we talked more about the people we saw and yearned for to see again. After a long round of shots, Miras made the decision for the night, we have to go to a traditional bath. We are gonna get insanely sloshed and go and take a communal bath. Ivan felt very nostalgic about the idea, where Sam felt  a bit weirded out. They drank bottles back to back.

They reached the bathhouse. It reeked of pheromones - Sam thought, when he walked in. We had to pay some money to store our clothes. One by one we went close to each locker that was assigned to us by  a small piece of paper. Then we started to strip naked to the butt. There were people shaving their beards completely naked, which was one of the weird sites to see in the corridors. They stripped and walked into the bath. Sam felt quite nasty about the place. It looked like a dead reckoning of a post modern version of masculine  melancholy. All the bodies looked like they had gone through some occupational metamorphosis. None of them remembered human anatomy; hopelessness conjoined with immense alcoholism had made every belly more curvy. Ivan and Miras ran into a pool like it was home. Sam tried to hide his genitals with his hands and failed. He felt like everyone in the room was looking at him. His friends had been equally drunk as everyone else in the room. There were men walking naked, putting soap. Sam figured that Ivan and Miras had started to have serious conversations about the war and their future. 

Half submerged in 50 degrees water, Sam stayed there looking at them thinking about the day that he learned to swim. His father was alive then, he took him to a lakeside on top of the mountains, the water was really hot, there were men who looked like they had been fishing for almost a century. They only moved their hands to change the burned out beedi from their mouth. Ivan and Miras had gone out to use some soap and razors to shave. As for Sam, who was left in the hot water pool, the place still seemed like it was from a different century. He decided to stay in the water as he was still not comfortable walking around spinning his willy. He left his mind on its own; following the childhood swimming lesson. He does not like water that much, reminds him of his father. Sam never felt that connected to his father, he actually did not know him much. Though, when his father died, he was barely seven, thereafter he remembers everyone was sympathetic towards him, from school friends to the girl he met at the party last week, everyone always gives him the puppy eyes about the death of his father. At some points, he has used it as a last stop to woo a kiss from a new date. He thought people have weird reactions to death or a tragedy. Tragedy humanizes the individual that suffered from it. Once you have a great tragedy in your life you have seen life, known what humanity is, shown resilience; though no one gives a fuck about how one survives grief. 

A muffled laugh from the adjacent pool pulled Sam out of his thoughts. He felt sweaty. It must be the hot water, he thought. But then he noticed his heartbeat was racing, his vision slightly blurred, and the world around him seemed submerged in liquid. Unbeknownst to Sam, being submerged in hot water for an extended period can be dangerous; the heat elevates heart rate, and with your chest under water for too long, it can trigger a panic attack, sometimes even lead to a heart attack. He tried to steady his breathing, sucking in air through his mouth. He surfaced, gasping, but slipped under again; though it felt less like slipping and more like being pulled, plunged back down by the men sitting nearby in the pool.

His breathing worsened. He turned to look at the men, maybe searching for help;but what he saw instead left him frozen. They were masturbating. Staring directly at him. A little twink cake, they must have thought. Their laughter crashed over him in waves; loud, distorted, monstrous. His heart pounded like it was being chased down an endless shore. They all looked the same, bland, expressionless, like they'd never really lived, or never known the kind of life Sam knew. These were men who had come to the bathhouse with their wives, their children, kids as tall as Sam himself. They were straight, homophobic, traditional men with small dicks. But in that moment, mid-panic attack, delirious from the heat,  for Sam, they seemed like messiahs; resurrected not to save the world, but to destroy it.

When he felt he was running out of breath completely; Sam scrambled out of the hot water, stumbling toward the door. Then everything went black as he collapsed onto the wet, tiled floor.

When Sam opened his eyes, he saw stars. It was a white night, maybe even one of the grey ones. There were some shooting stars or was Sam imagining them. 

“Fuck man, we thought you were dead.” 

Ivan’s voice got him back to reality. 

“Are you okay?” 

“Yes I am, I think, where is this? “

Before Sam finished asking, Ivan started apologizing; it was bad of them to not take care of Sam, sorry. Now they will be together no matter what. Ivan failed to produce a laughter as he was pissed drunk. Sam got up, they are sitting on the terrace of the bar, it seems like the sunset is not that far away. Ivan started to make some hay filled cushions and sheets into a bed arrangement. Sam showed no interest, he felt like he had gone through a rite of passage of eternal sleep with masturbatic ugly men as the nightmare. But the absurdity of the evening brought him a smile. 

“Where is Miras?” Sam asked. 

Ivan smiled, he is bringing company. To which Sam replied with a helpless sigh. 

Minutes passed by; a far away bird started to wake up, and its flock became noisy from afar. Sam saw Miras walking up the stairs to climb up to the terrace. There were two girls with him, it looked like they were all friends, and inevitably insanely drunk. Sam still felt his heart racing. Ivan smiled at him with care. The migratory bird sounds started increasing. 

Sam never knew the girls' names, though they were all sitting in the circle. Miras got his last bottle. It looked like pee, he said this has been a secret distillery that has been passed on from generations. They drank from the same bottle. Sam felt there was a classical violin playing in the background. Sam likes to make music and he loves the old classical violin, he visualizes it as the path of a zigzaggy fish swimming underwater. He often hears various music from his mind in his ears, at first he thought he was insane, but with years, he figured it is the musician in him having creative hallucinations and decided to not worry. He thought the other guys on the terrace too could feel the music - the perfect background score, which was inaudible for the rest of the world, but clearly echoed in the heads of the youth, which was forgetting a future they never had. They felt liberated that morning where they were not looking at the sky for missiles but birds flying away. 

Ivan said to the crowd, 

“I am jealous of this fucker, he would fly back to a beautiful place, have a normal life, we would become the same people that would tell the stories of destruction to generations to come. We would have the story of a crowd not an individual. “

Sam looked at Ivan emotionless, if only he knew about how they made food last for every month. Miras stopped Ivan and went on; 

“Well I see them as heroic stories, I don’t think we make our destinies, we have a life given to us, we have all the fun and within the walls of that life. You know the thing about walls…”

Everyone listens keenly for the next sentence; but Miras broke the suspense with his infectious laughter.. 

“Walls.. They suck balls.. Hahah..”

He leaned over to kiss one of the girls. She reciprocated with eagerness, her eyes languidly touched Sam’s gaze before they closed on the lips of Miras. They started making out as if there is no tomorrow, or even if they don't mind falling down from the old terrace, the passion surely brought a smile to Sam’s face. Ivan looked at Sam with a brotherly smile as he joined Miras and started to snuggle up to the same girl. This evidently created a tension between Sam and the other girl who was left out. They were a feet apart looking into the horizon that rendered an amber coloured void where sun disappeared and appeared in equal intervals of time. 

Me Nastya, niet Anglais! 

The girl said to Sam, and looked at him with her wide open green eyes. Meanwhile, Miras and Ivan took down all their clothes as they started dancing on the terrace hugging the other girl from either side. Sam would never know that they had fought over the same girl in school, many times, even though she was aware of it, she seems to be at a point in life where tenderness equals any desire. The morning light made them glow inside out; like neon butterflies, but coloured in warmth. Sam and Nastya had been already laying down on the cushions, she passed him the strongest alcohol he has ever had; which gave him courage to look into her pearly eyes which glowed so enchantingly. A minute passed by in silence. Sam and Nastya kiss; the rest of the people come to join. Sam felt he had been deaf, he could only hear Nastya’s breath, she sighs. The morning sun is extremely long he thought, but he wished for that morning to never be over. Magnetic movements of four naked bodies intertwined reflected in the morning dews. 

Towards her first climax, Sam’s eyes wandered out of Nastya's infinite eyes, he looked down to the parking afar and he saw the same man who was jerking off to him in the bath. The man was with his children, he held them together and kissed them, inaudible words of fatherly affection. As his middle aged wife - who was extremely tall - reached up to the family, Sam felt a pinch of weirdness. 

His wandering thoughts were brought back to the beautiful reality by Nastya's eyes rolling with pleasure again. Her screams surely felt like classical music. But this time it faded away, Sam laid there in her arms touching everyone else, Sam could not help but notice that Miras and Ivan have very similar genitals, which made him laugh a bit out loud for no reason. In the middle of the terrace, as the youth fell asleep to the passerby breeze, the bar was officially closed. 

*******************************************************************************************

Sam came out of the restaurant for a smoke, it has been 6 months after that last summer trip. He has been working in a restaurant, he needed money, there was nothing in Nepal he thought, he looked for eyes similar to Nastya and food in the deserted city. He is not sure if he likes being at the restaurant, to be honest he hates it, he often wanders into the classical violin music that turns up in his head; then he walks up to the parking lot, looking at the endless carpet of white snow. He felt like an old tree, without any leaves, standing tall in the cold, smoking hand rolled cigarettes; holding the pangs of sadness deep within him. 

He was called out by the restaurant staff before the cigarette was over. He walked up to the table to take the order. There was an old lady sitting with her son. They were silent, though once they could hear the buzzing ocean of untold things between them. However, Sam was not interested in tragedies anymore. 

Two cups of Vodka, they said. 

Sam felt he knew the guy from somewhere, but could not place, he judged them for drinking at noon as we walked back to the kitchen. Sam thought to offer starters but didn't feel like interrupting their reunion of sorrow. He did not look at the guy, but his mom. She was the on e who was ordering. He pushed the menu towards the guy but he did not seem interested in it. His military haircut and the long black hoodie made Sam think that he had been just back from the war.

Sam walked into the huge refrigerator where good Vodkas are stored for years. The refrigerator seemed warmer than the climate outside he thought. He took a huge bottle, poured a couple of big glasses of Vodka. He left them at the table with the sad customers with complementary nuts and snacks. They ordered the same glasses three more times. Sam looked at them from afar. He did not like that they did not exchange eye contact despite being visibly mother and son. Sam was missing his mom, he hadn’t been home for three years. He remembers her working all day, paying rent, food, bills, but she always had 10 mins for him before bed. She came and sat next to him, asked him about his day, moved her fingers in his hair. She touched his hair, a lot of it has been going due to the lack of sunlight and vitamins. Ma would not like to move her fingers in these he thought, but refrained from the thought as he felt he could always count on her for everything he needs. He shed a tear. 

The lady called out to Sam from the table, he woke up from his thoughts. She requested for the bill. Sam took the bill to her. As they paid and got up, the guy accidentally dropped a glass, and seemed ultimately terrified of the noise. Sam realized the guy is blind and has been hiding his eyes with the glasses as dark as the blackest of nights. 

“It’s fine, no worries!”

Sam said without taking his eyes off the guy, he seemed like he knew him. 

“Thank you!”

His mom said spasiba as they left and smiling at Sam, she left a tip of 50 euros. That was more than Sam’s salary for the day. He was a bit perplexed about who the guy was and the amount of money he got from the laziest of services. Sam took the money, and walked behind the restaurant, to the parking lot, he felt his heart racing, eerily similar to the feeling he had in the traditional bath months before. He rushed out for a cigarette between the congratulatory shouts from the coworkers about the insane 50 euro tip he got. 

Was it Ivan? 

Sam could not formulate the question in his mind. He chain smoked voraciously in the parking lot as he saw Ivan and his mom get into their car which was far away, almost buried in snow. Camouflaged in whiteness. Before getting into the car, Ivan looked at the restaurant, surely he did not see anything, but Sam felt that Ivan was looking for Sam, and if it was Ivan (with the deformed face)  he thought their presence was communicated with each other. 

Time filled up within a narrow bottle of emotions moved in front Sam’s eyes like a drugged montage of memories. He was crying out loud. As the car moved on, Sam, running out of breath, rushed into the toilet. He saw his bag in the changing room. He pulled out his journal. There was a picture inside it; of Ivan from the night. He looked at it as his trembling hands kept tearing and crushing the photo. 

Someone else had given a new order, Sam was called out again. He chugged the rest of the Vodka from the glasses that were just about to be washed. 

Sam walked to the table, with staggering steps, as Ivan drove to his destroyed house with his mom; and Miras stepped on a landmine faraway somewhere. 

What happened to Nastya and the nameless girl, no one knows; but Sam felt he cannot take it even if he knew.