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As seen in the last Sergei instalment…
He'd seen the movies. Read thrillers. Been on the New York subway of the pre-zero-tolerance 1980s (while on tour as a fledgling shot-putter for the Moscow Worldwide Comrade Sports Team). But nothing prepared Sergei for the sight of a cold gun-barrel pointing in the region of his third eye.
He stopped dancing, pissed himself and tried to focus somewhere in the middle distance, near the petrol-pump that said 'cards only'. He didn't want to look the robber in the eyes, following the same philosophy that urges you not to lock eyes with a wild dog.
Two things could now happen and here's the first [well, an infinite array of things really, but as a limited author, Steve has selected two. We'll play this like a movie that has an ending and an alternate ending on the DVD reissue.
Now Sergei has recovered from post-traumatic shock, here’s the second ending]:
[Playing in the background: the late BBC Radio DJ Ray Moore singing: ‘O My Father Had a Rabbit’ for charity back in 1986…
Ray Moore: O My Father had a Rabbit and he thought it was a duck so he stuck it on the table with its legs cocked up
Sergei couldn’t avoid the almost touchable smell of the robber’s breath: a mixture of halitosis, stale smoke, Worcester sauce flavoured crisps (coming in waves of tiny belches), over-chewed spearmint gum and garlic. Sergei always had a good sense of smell and taste, for example he knew the difference between red and white wine without even looking at it, quite an achievement where he came from.
The smell drew a picture of the robber as a man, despite the fact that his face was covered by a long woolly hat with eyeholes, [that’s a balaclava, Sergei – but don’t worry, it’s nothing to do with the Crimean War] he was a smoker who ate junk food and failed to clean his teeth in between.
“I said, the contents of your till…” Nothing prepared Sergei for having a gun poked in his face. Because, unlike the cowardly Sergei whose body he usually occupied, this Sergei became a have-a-go hero.
The kind of citizen that you read about in the local papers (and The Sun) either collecting an award from some Mayor – or as an embarrassing school photo due to the fact that their contemporary image has had its head blown off, “…and all the fags you can carry, sunshine.”
“I don’t speak ingliss too well. Pa rooskie,” said Sergei feigning foreigness.
Ray Moore: He mixed a bowl of stuffing and he left it on the shelf…
“A roosky, from Moscock I shouldn’t wonder [that’s a reference to a 1980s Port advert – Cockburns Special Reserve – “…so I come from Moscock?” said the Russian Captain, who mispronounced Cockburns as ‘Cock Burns’ rather than ‘Co Burns’, so assumed that Moscow must be ‘Mos Cock’ in English. The British Captain replied: “Yes, you probably do…” as if everyone in the world should instantly recognise the name Cockburns as Co Burns.] well hand us all yer roubles and cigaretteskies, chum.”
For some reason, this robber’s lexicon scoured the ages, ‘chum’ being a term of endearment from the early to mid 20th Century: for example, “let’s get chummy back in the boat…” in movie depictions of Dunkirk.
“Bert vitch permp doos you needing? Comrade?” maybe Sergei was overdoing it a bit.
Ray Moore: but when he came to stuff the duck the duck had stuffed itself…
And that was the last from Mr Moore as the robber pointed his revolver at the radio and blasted.
“Look man,” said the robber, now aping the swinging ‘60s, “you comprendez vous? [sic] give me the dough!” said the robber.
“Would you like white sliced or brown? We have both…” said Sergei, edging towards the door.
Why was Sergei so determined to be a hero? It’s not as if he cared about the crappy Fuel&FagsCo organisation that employed him.
Who cared if they lost 40,000 fags and a day’s takings? Was it worth getting a bullet through the temple for? Perhaps it was the isolation. Maybe he was going do-lally, putting in so many shifts in the middle-of-nowhere service station to save up enough hard-earned to buy his chip van. Stuck in a place lacking human contact.
“Get away from that door! Get Away!” shouted the robber, making a leap past the black-and-white-chocolate-special-edition Mars Bar stand.
Sergei dived out onto the forecourt of the petrol station and grabbed a pump nozzle.
The robber reached the door and launched himself through, as Sergei lit the end of the nozzle, spraying flames and turning the robber to a charcoal crisp almost instantly.
The robber’s body crumbled onto the barbeque display next to the newspaper stand. By the way, somewhat ironically, the robber’s surname was Crisp.
The whole event had been witnessed by Geoffrey from Rainbow, who’d just arrived in his clean car, a car that contained Duggie, his mate, The cyclist and a pike sloshing around in bucket of water.
“Blimey!” said Geoffrey, stopping next to the diesel pump by mistake.
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Wednesday 21 April 2010
Monday 19 April 2010
Normal Service will be resumed...
Normal Service will be resumed as soon as possible.
Imagine someone is sitting here, in black and white, making a pot out of clay.
Or that a girl is teaching a stuffed clown to write on a blackboard.
Sergei's just dealing with post-traumatic stress from his ordeal with the robber.
Isolation, Isolation. Better than desolation, I suppose.
Imagine someone is sitting here, in black and white, making a pot out of clay.
Or that a girl is teaching a stuffed clown to write on a blackboard.
Sergei's just dealing with post-traumatic stress from his ordeal with the robber.
Isolation, Isolation. Better than desolation, I suppose.
Sunday 11 April 2010
Sergei - studying the barrel #1
He'd seen the movies. Read thrillers. Been on the New York subway of the pre-zero-tolerance 1980s (while on tour as a fledgling shot-putter for the Moscow Worldwide Comrade Sports Team). But nothing prepared Sergei for the sight of a cold gun-barrel pointing in the region of his thrid eye.
He stopped dancing, pissed himself and tried to focus somewhere in the middle distance, near the petrol-pump that said 'cards only'. He didn't want to look the robber in the eyes, following the same philosophy that urges you not to lock eyes with a wild dog.
Two things could now happen and here's the first [well, an infinite array of things really, but as a limited author, Steve has selected two. We'll play this like a movie that has an ending and an alternate ending on the DVD reissue. The first in this post the second in the next]:
Sergei was fundamentally a coward. There was no way he was going to fight to protect the takens of the blasted 'Fuel&FagsCoPetroleum', his employers and owners of this hellhole.
Not only did he hate them, he was also scared half to death. And in such times, the mind starts playing tricks.
As he stared at that middle-distant petrol pump, the screen telling the buyer how many litres he/she'd been ripped-off for turned into a miniature TV screen, flashing back through Sergei's childhood in the old USSR and his attempt to make it in the west.
What he focused on was the dream of owning a chip shop - buying a chippy and setting up in business. His Uncle Dimitri, who defected decades before the wall came down, always said, on those incognito postcards that he sent from his bedsit in Morden, Surrey (he used to describe the accomodation as "near-a the toob stayteon to geyt inta Loondon") - "Sergei, you-a moost give-a de Eengliss foood. Frie-ed food. 'itsa vart dey eeet. You wad becum ze Milly-yon-air!" He died after he was knocked off his moped while learning the cab driver's 'knowledge'. It may have been the KGB.
Sergei remembered his meeting last week (as his life flashed past him, the instant before an imagined bullet to the brain) with a guy selling a mobile chip shop, on eBay.
He made the trip over to Basildon in Essex, never been there before. The van (Buy-it-now price £2,650, with immediate £300 PayPal deposit after purchase) was parked up in the man's drive: a Transit, 'N-reg', bit of rust. The business was called "Not the Jackson Pollock's - All Cod Fish Bar", sign-written on the side of the ex-ambulance vehicle in day-glow yellow lettering, edged with silver.
"Why the Jackson Pollock?" said Sergei.
"We don't like that Pollock fish - we only use cod. It's a conspiracy thoery that fish stocks stuff. By the Icelanders, trying to put our fishermen out of business." said the fish shop seller, Benny Rubkins, "you'd know all about that stuff with the secret police and all."
Sergei didn't have a clue what he was on about.
"The beauty of this vehicle is that you've got minimal overheads. No rent, no rates. Just fill up with a bit of juice and Bob's your uncle!" said Rubkins.
"Bob's my...what?" said Sergei.
"Vladimir's your uncle - whatever. It's easy money!"
Sergei liked the idea more and more.
"And as it's an ambulance, I like the fact that we're still contributing to keeping our hospitals full. You know, bringing on ill-health all the junk food!" said Rubkins, laughing an showing off a mouth full of stained, caracked and missing teeth and a discoloured tongue. Looked alot like the average Russian, thought Sergei.
Rubkins fired up the fryers, lined up along the side of the ambulance, the entrance was at the rear, and led to a glass diplay area, just like a chippy in the High Street.
"Make up to £2,000 a week in the summer, this thing will. A couple of weeks work and it would have cost you nothing," said Rubkins, dipping a frozen fillet of cod into some pasty looking pale yellow batter before slipping into the fat where it sizzled and curled into a semi-circle.
"That's the way you want it, Serge me old mate," said Rubkins, tipping a bag of sliced potatoes into the adjacent fryer, "Let it curl up so it steams in the batter, don't want the fat to get through to the fish. Here, try out cooking the chips."
Sergei wrapped his hand round the handle of the frying basket, it wasn't like the pathetic Do-nut fryers installed at the petrol station - always spitting out molten liquid at the users, never cleaned: the weight and feel of this fryer made him feel like a man. Like a businessman. A Western businessman. "I'll take it, Mr Rubkins. Your business, I'll buy it. Full price."
"Wise decision Sergei. You won't regret it," said Rubkins and they shook on the deal. Sergei went back to the frying basket and dunked the chips into the popping fat. Yes it felt good.
When he came round, he held a ragged piece of woolly mask in his hand, above the Do-nut fryer. It was still attached to the head of the robber and somehow Sergei was dunking the head of the man into the boiling fat: in and out, in and out. His features had crisped up like a roasted chicken and he didn't seem to be breathing.
Wow, thought Serge, the power of the sub-conscious imagination, and promptly vomited over the pick and mix.
He stopped dancing, pissed himself and tried to focus somewhere in the middle distance, near the petrol-pump that said 'cards only'. He didn't want to look the robber in the eyes, following the same philosophy that urges you not to lock eyes with a wild dog.
Two things could now happen and here's the first [well, an infinite array of things really, but as a limited author, Steve has selected two. We'll play this like a movie that has an ending and an alternate ending on the DVD reissue. The first in this post the second in the next]:
Sergei was fundamentally a coward. There was no way he was going to fight to protect the takens of the blasted 'Fuel&FagsCoPetroleum', his employers and owners of this hellhole.
Not only did he hate them, he was also scared half to death. And in such times, the mind starts playing tricks.
As he stared at that middle-distant petrol pump, the screen telling the buyer how many litres he/she'd been ripped-off for turned into a miniature TV screen, flashing back through Sergei's childhood in the old USSR and his attempt to make it in the west.
What he focused on was the dream of owning a chip shop - buying a chippy and setting up in business. His Uncle Dimitri, who defected decades before the wall came down, always said, on those incognito postcards that he sent from his bedsit in Morden, Surrey (he used to describe the accomodation as "near-a the toob stayteon to geyt inta Loondon") - "Sergei, you-a moost give-a de Eengliss foood. Frie-ed food. 'itsa vart dey eeet. You wad becum ze Milly-yon-air!" He died after he was knocked off his moped while learning the cab driver's 'knowledge'. It may have been the KGB.
Sergei remembered his meeting last week (as his life flashed past him, the instant before an imagined bullet to the brain) with a guy selling a mobile chip shop, on eBay.
He made the trip over to Basildon in Essex, never been there before. The van (Buy-it-now price £2,650, with immediate £300 PayPal deposit after purchase) was parked up in the man's drive: a Transit, 'N-reg', bit of rust. The business was called "Not the Jackson Pollock's - All Cod Fish Bar", sign-written on the side of the ex-ambulance vehicle in day-glow yellow lettering, edged with silver.
"Why the Jackson Pollock?" said Sergei.
"We don't like that Pollock fish - we only use cod. It's a conspiracy thoery that fish stocks stuff. By the Icelanders, trying to put our fishermen out of business." said the fish shop seller, Benny Rubkins, "you'd know all about that stuff with the secret police and all."
Sergei didn't have a clue what he was on about.
"The beauty of this vehicle is that you've got minimal overheads. No rent, no rates. Just fill up with a bit of juice and Bob's your uncle!" said Rubkins.
"Bob's my...what?" said Sergei.
"Vladimir's your uncle - whatever. It's easy money!"
Sergei liked the idea more and more.
"And as it's an ambulance, I like the fact that we're still contributing to keeping our hospitals full. You know, bringing on ill-health all the junk food!" said Rubkins, laughing an showing off a mouth full of stained, caracked and missing teeth and a discoloured tongue. Looked alot like the average Russian, thought Sergei.
Rubkins fired up the fryers, lined up along the side of the ambulance, the entrance was at the rear, and led to a glass diplay area, just like a chippy in the High Street.
"Make up to £2,000 a week in the summer, this thing will. A couple of weeks work and it would have cost you nothing," said Rubkins, dipping a frozen fillet of cod into some pasty looking pale yellow batter before slipping into the fat where it sizzled and curled into a semi-circle.
"That's the way you want it, Serge me old mate," said Rubkins, tipping a bag of sliced potatoes into the adjacent fryer, "Let it curl up so it steams in the batter, don't want the fat to get through to the fish. Here, try out cooking the chips."
Sergei wrapped his hand round the handle of the frying basket, it wasn't like the pathetic Do-nut fryers installed at the petrol station - always spitting out molten liquid at the users, never cleaned: the weight and feel of this fryer made him feel like a man. Like a businessman. A Western businessman. "I'll take it, Mr Rubkins. Your business, I'll buy it. Full price."
"Wise decision Sergei. You won't regret it," said Rubkins and they shook on the deal. Sergei went back to the frying basket and dunked the chips into the popping fat. Yes it felt good.
When he came round, he held a ragged piece of woolly mask in his hand, above the Do-nut fryer. It was still attached to the head of the robber and somehow Sergei was dunking the head of the man into the boiling fat: in and out, in and out. His features had crisped up like a roasted chicken and he didn't seem to be breathing.
Wow, thought Serge, the power of the sub-conscious imagination, and promptly vomited over the pick and mix.
Wednesday 7 April 2010
Sergei's dancing - to a Fall cover-version, of all things...
I don’t know where it came from, this obsession with isolation, thought Sergei.
Wherever I am I chose the option most suited to isolation.
He remembered being a guard on the Trans Siberian. Not so much a guard, although that’s what he told ‘the girls’, more a baggage handler.
“Hey. Hey Boy!” That’s what he heard, each time they stopped at a halt in some godforsaken hole, “Want to earn a rouble or two? Or you gonna sit there staring up your arse all day, huh!”
The gangsters were the worst. No respect for humankind, it was all about money. And they say the UK is a capitalist state.
So, Sergei would take the bags. Chuck them into a taxi, hopefully spilling some of the contents if he could get a zip undone.
He once found a bag of cocaine, nestling in the top of a holdall trust in his hands by the minder of one of these gangsters. Sergei managed to liberate the drugs, funding part of the next year selling small bags of coke to passengers.
Now the service station/petrol station/garage, whatever they’re called. We call them Gas stations in Russia, like the Yanks, he thought to himself.
“Gas!” said Sergei, “Gas! been-ZEEN! [that’s an approximation of the sound of the word petrol, in Russian] been-ZEEN!” and he danced around the room chanting the word, “been-ZEEN! been-ZEEN! been-ZEEN!”
Maybe that’s why he liked to be on his own. Maybe he was slightly deranged.
He danced and danced and tuned his movements into the music softly dribbling from his transistor radio: I can hear the grass grow [not the Move’s original, The Fall’s cover version]
[and here’s an aside by Duggie Chop about The Fall and cover versions…
“I’m not gonna say much now. Just this: Fall cover versions are rubbish when Brix had anything to do with ‘em, and only slightly better when she didn’t. And…”
“What about ‘Victoria’?” Said Duggie’s mate, flicking through a back issue of Mojo, the one with Kraftwerk on the front cover, “I reckon they did alright with that one. I mean, it was pretty obscure before they covered it. I think they made the charts.”
“You’re thinking of ‘Hit The North’,” said Duggie, “Ok, I’m just saying that The Fall’s cover versions are usually rubbish.”
“Why Are People Grudgeful’? ‘Lost in Music’? both from The Infotainment Scan, 1993” said Duggie’s mate.
“Yeah, but they’ve got nothing to do with Brix!” said Duggie, attempting to rescue his argument.
“Suppose so. I don’t particularly like them anyway. Much prefer The Fall’s originals. It’s good when Mark E Smith resurrects something that he was into. Might murder it, but at least people search out the original.” Said Duggie’s mate (in his mind were the four tracks from Black Monk Time by The Monks that The Fall had covered).
“I reckon Sergei’s gonna be in schtuck if we don’t shut up – look at him dancing around.” Said Duggie.
“And he doesn’t know what’s coming up either, does he?” said Duggie’s mate.
“Nah, But he soon will. Watch.” Said Duggie, fading away like a finger swish through dust on a warm CRT TV screen.]
We’re back with Sergei, swirling around and dancing, swirling and chanting. He collected the broom and he’s swinging it around like a rather thin dance partner, “been ZEEN! You are my Queen!” he said, eyes closed in a kind of ecstasy of movement.
And he would have continued all day, or at least until someone ordered petrol or fags, but his eyes opened on the barrel of a gun pointed straight at his face.
“Can I have the contents of your till please. And 40,000 cigarettes.” Said the voice behind a knitted mask.
Wherever I am I chose the option most suited to isolation.
He remembered being a guard on the Trans Siberian. Not so much a guard, although that’s what he told ‘the girls’, more a baggage handler.
“Hey. Hey Boy!” That’s what he heard, each time they stopped at a halt in some godforsaken hole, “Want to earn a rouble or two? Or you gonna sit there staring up your arse all day, huh!”
The gangsters were the worst. No respect for humankind, it was all about money. And they say the UK is a capitalist state.
So, Sergei would take the bags. Chuck them into a taxi, hopefully spilling some of the contents if he could get a zip undone.
He once found a bag of cocaine, nestling in the top of a holdall trust in his hands by the minder of one of these gangsters. Sergei managed to liberate the drugs, funding part of the next year selling small bags of coke to passengers.
Now the service station/petrol station/garage, whatever they’re called. We call them Gas stations in Russia, like the Yanks, he thought to himself.
“Gas!” said Sergei, “Gas! been-ZEEN! [that’s an approximation of the sound of the word petrol, in Russian] been-ZEEN!” and he danced around the room chanting the word, “been-ZEEN! been-ZEEN! been-ZEEN!”
Maybe that’s why he liked to be on his own. Maybe he was slightly deranged.
He danced and danced and tuned his movements into the music softly dribbling from his transistor radio: I can hear the grass grow [not the Move’s original, The Fall’s cover version]
[and here’s an aside by Duggie Chop about The Fall and cover versions…
“I’m not gonna say much now. Just this: Fall cover versions are rubbish when Brix had anything to do with ‘em, and only slightly better when she didn’t. And…”
“What about ‘Victoria’?” Said Duggie’s mate, flicking through a back issue of Mojo, the one with Kraftwerk on the front cover, “I reckon they did alright with that one. I mean, it was pretty obscure before they covered it. I think they made the charts.”
“You’re thinking of ‘Hit The North’,” said Duggie, “Ok, I’m just saying that The Fall’s cover versions are usually rubbish.”
“Why Are People Grudgeful’? ‘Lost in Music’? both from The Infotainment Scan, 1993” said Duggie’s mate.
“Yeah, but they’ve got nothing to do with Brix!” said Duggie, attempting to rescue his argument.
“Suppose so. I don’t particularly like them anyway. Much prefer The Fall’s originals. It’s good when Mark E Smith resurrects something that he was into. Might murder it, but at least people search out the original.” Said Duggie’s mate (in his mind were the four tracks from Black Monk Time by The Monks that The Fall had covered).
“I reckon Sergei’s gonna be in schtuck if we don’t shut up – look at him dancing around.” Said Duggie.
“And he doesn’t know what’s coming up either, does he?” said Duggie’s mate.
“Nah, But he soon will. Watch.” Said Duggie, fading away like a finger swish through dust on a warm CRT TV screen.]
We’re back with Sergei, swirling around and dancing, swirling and chanting. He collected the broom and he’s swinging it around like a rather thin dance partner, “been ZEEN! You are my Queen!” he said, eyes closed in a kind of ecstasy of movement.
And he would have continued all day, or at least until someone ordered petrol or fags, but his eyes opened on the barrel of a gun pointed straight at his face.
“Can I have the contents of your till please. And 40,000 cigarettes.” Said the voice behind a knitted mask.
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