I was popping a zit in the mirror of a lavatory in a Russian airplane, somewhere over the Atlantic on route to India about half drunk off of a free bottle of Pierre Javert French merlot when I laughed and said, “Holy shit, I’m popping a zit in the mirror of a Russian airplane’s pisser, somewhere over the Atlantic headed for India and feeling good from that wine.”
This Russian airline, called Aeroflot, prompted scores of nay-sayers before I left Tennessee. The travel agent said, “Well, the service is horrible and they have a high crash rate.”
All I found was coziness and comfort, little red blankets with emblems, little warm towels to wipe off long flights, and lay-overs with wine, seven-step service and sushi. The flight also included hot blonde stewardesses that talked with Slavic tongue, which is both subtle and supple in calling with those blunt accented syllables.
I nodded at the blonde who said “Hal-lo” as I came back out of the 4-feet-6-inch jon.
I walked by four guys smoking, and they offered me a shot. The smoking section had turned into more of a cocktail party amid the aisled seats, the trays were in the upright position.
“You are American, no?”
“Yeah.”
I threw back the warm double shot of finely distilled potato and it tickled me, giving me a chill and causing me to do a spasm-like head shiver – hurgleburgleburg-bug-bug. They laughed and patted me on the back. The hot stewardess with the Caspian eyes twirled one of her pigtails while smoking on a cigarette that had the delicate imprint of soft, maroon lips around the filter. Her pastel skin had to be as smooth as Siberian ice.
Oh how we would slide between sheets and keep feet warm on those perma-frozen nights.
She scratched the back of her head, looking like a Jewell song makes me feel, seductively saying to me the same thing I said as I shook the shot off, “I-CHEEE-WAAA-WA!”
My gift bearer patted my shoulder laughing, “My comrade, you are American but you drink like a rooskie.”
When I got back to my seat, Natasha was gazing out at the blue night of the open seas. We hadn’t gotten our frosted bottle yet; we were still waiting for the cart to make it down the aisle to our fingers.
See, on Aeroflot, instead of serving after-dinner drinks, they just wheel down the duty-free cart, full of Russian vodka for cheap, $5 for a liter of Stolichnaya and then the stewardesses will bring you any of your favorite Soviet fruit juices. After the purchase I took two water bottles back to the pig-tailed one, wishing for her to also be the luscious loquacious one. She smiled. I wanted to say, “How you doin’?” Instead I said, “You got any orange juice?”
As I walked away from her, my only solace came in the realization that no matter how good she looks, somebody, somewhere is probably sick of her shit.
My comrades were getting further away from sober, knee-deep in loudness and stumbling. A few others were playing chess.
One of the men offered me a Marlboro cigarette and I shook my head no. They mingled amongst other rooskies with clear plastic cups and an eager-as-hell frosted bottle of the expensive stuff wrapped in those loosened frosted knuckles of drunkenness.
They laughed and smiled but the jokes Russian’d it over my lingual head.
The guy from before smiled as I politely declined the smoke, “Ah no, but I do know what our comrade would like.”
He poured me another shot.
Back in my seat, armed with two liters of mixing libations, I leaned back and put the headphones on. Channel 4 – Dixie Chicks, wait, wait, Springsteen on 5. Channel 10 had some funky and squeaky Russian techno playing, and later reminded me that it was video that killed the radio star.
The vodka was really getting to me so I ordered a beer. The choice was between two Czechoslovakian beers and I based mine on the color of the label.
“What would those naysayers say now?” I thought.
This Cold War should’ve been ended long ago.
I love the Russians and their Aeroflot.
My beer came and I drank from its lukewarm container. “Man, this Czech beer tastes like an Old Mil freshly unearthed from some 15-year-old’s stash spot in his backyard.”
Natasha looked at me, her cheeks flush from the vodka, “I think stale would have done it.”
Hours later, confused by jetlag and vodka, I noticed the sun was coming up, transforming the dark into morning.
Hard hues of orange and red were coming up over the Scandinavian ice below, after that I fell asleep. We woke up coming down into the turbulence of Moscow’s snowy air.
The Moscow airport is cold. Cold as three witch’s titties in brass bras doing push-ups in the snow.
The floors are marble and glass divides corridors in a circle that spirals in from the terminals. The snow came down sideways in the wind while men in ankle-long olive overcoats and rifles slung across their shoulders patrolled the runway, their warm breaths rising up in the cold air like short-lived ghosts.
The bathrooms were as frigid and uninviting as the river Rasputin drowned in must have been. The toilets did not have seats and the steel of the commode had no sheen.
This was not a place to be hungover. One of the vodka boys from the plane laughed as we urinated, he pointed to stuff dried on the side of one the toilets and said, “This is how Russia says, welcome home.”
We were stuck there for a good 13 hours, so a nap was first priority after some hydration. Upstairs, by the passport office, we found cardboard and blankets in piles.
It was where young faces played cards, big beards snored and a young child smiled. I went to get water after we set up camp.
Walking back up the stairs, I could almost taste the bottled pleasure of the cold water in my hands.
I was waiting to sit down and enjoy it, but in the meantime was banging it on the rail like a sentimental drummer.
Nap wanting, I had a crusty-eyed craving for some sort of antithesis to my dry throat, that would be oh so reprieved, once I sat down.
Coming around the corner, I saw Natasha sitting up, legs crossed, rocking back and forth like she was wearing a straight-jacket and from what I could tell, was talking to herself with a tad of angst in her voice. She looked like she had lost it amongst her mumbling.
“Tasha?” I asked, curious but hesitant. “Un-huh?”
“You, uh talking to youself?”
“Uggghhh, this guy he keeps getting all in my space, he’s freak-ing me out.”
The guy was pacing back and forth in front of our packs and us, but he was being a close walker. He walked right in front of us, almost stepping on our stuff. This was a repeated effort and his attentions seemed to not even include us. His face was grave and concerned and it frequented peeks through the window of the passport office.
This guy had the whole hallway, a good 20 feet or so to choose his steps, but for some reason would angle himself in towards our camp so that the cuffs of his pants were almost brushing my ears everytime he came by.
I was so tired that a few mumbled words were all I could solve, “quit you’re close-walking,” I said to him, but not in Russian so it didn’t matter and then it was back to my water.
Sitting back against my pack, I adjusted a few things to get my nest made and opened the bottle. Sshishishiishshsh.
It was mineral water and I’d been shaking it around, ignorant to the ninja-like carbonation sneaking around inside the bottle. Over half the bottle jumped out like the snakes of a fake peanut can.
I hate mineral water, I hate being wet in a cold airport built by communists, and I hate things that suck.
There are dangers of buying things in languages you don’t understand and this was one of them.
Once, in the Mexican jungle, I was tired and ordered something on the menu that was pulpo-yada-yada somethin’.
I was thinking shrimp (camarones), but realized my mistake after a Coke and quick check in the dictionary. Some-how octopus tentacles marinated in lemon juice with picante just didn’t seem to sound appetizing.
I was hungry but not that damn hungry.
I had the same ‘damn it’ feeling in my wet crotch o’-Moscow airport as I did in my empty belly under the thatched-roof restaurant o’-Pacific jungle.
Eventually, some official looking men with Eastern European chins came and took the guy away and oh, did he protest. I was drinking my bubbly water and found that the belching it caused was pleasing.
Anyway, I think he got deported or something; maybe he was a fugitive from another country for an unsaid crime. Perhaps he was a wanted man in Turkey for several counts of close-walking.
I took a good nap and went up and ate some borsch in the cafeteria.

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