Bapašaba

>From: editor < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>To: “Me“ < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>Subject: For Jerry

>Date: 1 February, 2001 16:15>

Dear Jerry:

right now this is the way things are: we didn´t make the translations on time, which we were supposed to submit to Playboy, but I gave Peter two super sexy stories that God dictated to me one night. for a while we delighted in them until the threads of his sacred shirt started bursting apart on his sacred belly.

he said the time was ripe for me to write something lovable. after all, it´s a nice lovable job, all you´ve got to do is close your eyes at night and by the morning you´ve got everything done in a neat little white pile next to your bed. i know that it sounds a bit strange to you, but on one hand everybody believes in the Providence in his own way even though on the other, more destiny oriented, hand it is difficult to believe that God is one of Playboy´s subscribers. that was the holy crux of the problem. Peter, Playboy’s chief editor in Slovakia, needs a material of a different coinage. so I started browsing through Playboy, not just to find a “big broad” satisfaction, but to have an intellectual experience. Then I´ve learnt this:

introduction: he pulled his birdie out of her mouth.

plot: he rammed it into her while in a restroom on a plane.

climax: the sperm gets stuck in the air and the plane with the man fall into a hole.

denouement: the woman comes out of the restroom while the man stays in it all juiced out like a dried-up well in the sun.

well, that is the kind of stuff we have ... I wouldn´t sign it, only if they paid me extra in bricks of gold.

while skiing in France with Peter we agreed that he´ll write about my little daughter Simone to Playboy. it really got him that things like that were possible. and among other things, he offered me a chief editor´s position in Playboy, and that he is pulling out of it in a couple of months. what a score that would be to put a fox in a chicken coop.

I am sending you those very slightly erotic stories not quite swarming with wieners, hairy pies, and other goodies. if I write a few ones and you add something to them from your drawer, which probably, as always, is gaping with emptiness, we could create a book, like we did once before. how about it?

R.

>From: “Me“ < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>To: editor < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>Subject: For Rastislav

>Date: 30 March, 2001 6:20 PM>

Dear Rastislav:

You should be clear on the fact that even when I don´t reply to you, I´m always thinking of you. I know that you’re rushing me, but you´ve got to give me some time. Some I have already read and some I still have to read.

Jerry

PS: I´ve seen a Playboy about your Simone. Peter wrote it really well, but life remains a cynical undertaking to the grave.

Jerry

>From: editor < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>To: “Me“< This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>Subject: For Jerry

>Date: 23 June, 2001 4:15 PM>

Jerry:

I am glad that you are making easier my further acting in this comedy called “Shake Granpa´s Golden Scrotum.“

can you move on with the stories? because I am afraid that you won´t make it before your plane takes off.
actually, when are you leaving?

R.

>From: “Me“ < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>To: editor < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>Subject: For Rastislav

>Date: 23 September, 2001 11:10 AM>

Rastislav:

I´ve got to step on it, because I´m afraid I might not make it before my flight.

Actually, I’m quite sure about it.

In fact, I have to confess something to you. I´ve already left. I’m thinking of you. I don´t have much time right now. I’m at the airport in Miami. I´ll get back to you as soon as I can.

Jerry

>From: editor < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>To: “Me“ < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>Subject: For Jerry

>Date: 23 September, 2001 1:23 PM>

Jerry:

you dog, you´ve chosen the right country. like attracts like. go see our buddy Hefner and say hello to him from an ambitious Slovak chief editor of his brilliant rag paper magazine overfilled with blondie intellect. you won´t become a famous writer with this kind of approach, but a famous American at best.

R.

you´ve got to bug out, exactly when my other buddies from mags started working on my dear Simone. a sad reading. it doesn´t change anything, perhaps only me. many people warn me that there are other problems too. one of my buddy´s radiator started leaking and at the same time mine did too. and two of mine at once. one in the kitchen and the other one in the bedroom. it´s an absolute epidemic, and then try not to believe in the Providence! these are last serious warnings before a definite end.

I´m doing the best I can, but my ex is doing all she can too; her capabilities are incomparably greater. check it out on the web.

best regards,

little “Don Quijote”

>From: Gaspar < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>To: Johnny < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>Subject: New News from New Zealand

>Date: 25 September, 2001 6:37 AM

Hi Johnny:

Today is 25 September. If I´m not mistaken, in 1516, Vasco Nunez de Balboa stepped over the Isthmus of Panama. What’s very interesting about this whole thing is the phrase “stepped over“.

I´m in New Zealand again – it´s been three weeks already. I’m making living as a painter and laborer. If you think that work has finally become my hobby, you´re wrong. Tomorrow at 6 am we´re going to the South Island, into the Mt. Aspiring region, which sounds dangerous.

What´s new in Slovakia? Has some bank gone bankrupt? Sometimes I read news on the web. It says that Slovakia is headed for economic well-being.

Jerry contacts me here and there, and I expecting that next time he´ll contact me from America by now. He´s setting out on a trip to Florida. I don´t know what gave him the idea, maybe he wants to start out with the worst and then gradually move on to something better. I would slip right over to Colorado.

The last news I got was that he was flying on 23 September and that has already past. Now America is threatened by the Jihad, a Holy War. They get points for every Christian and Jew they kill. It´s such an evil game. God, oh God, what do you want to say by that? How are you doing? What are you reading?

Gaspar

>From: Johnny < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>To: Gaspar < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>Subject: RE: New News from New Zealand

>Date: 26 September, 2001 10:29 AM

Hello, Gaspar!

So you´re back there again. There you have spring now, so you´re going to have a good time on the South Island.

I haven´t heard much about Jerry. Supposedly he is in Florida, but this I know only through what others say. But I do not envy his situation. To leave his comfortable den, beer joint and shower for washing his ass forever is not an easy decision to make. I don´t know why he went to Florida. I would probably head west like you too if I´d go to the US at all. I´m afraid of physical labor more than death, and it´s for sure that I wouldn´t get other than physical work there.

If you still read, get something by Carlos Castaneda. I´ve already stopped reading, but when I came across this “extraterrestrial”, I got into it again. What Castaneda wrote is really nothing new as we already suspected many such things while we were adolescents in high school. Then we became adults and heuristic thinking about the essence of the Universe turned out good for shit.

Here the weather is changing a lot. Right now a fresh snow can be seen on the peaks of the Tatra Mountains, but the winter is still unforeseeably far away, there´s a nasty fog and disgusting drizzle here.

For God´s sake, what are you reading there? I have a feeling that now we´re living in prosperity without even realizing it. Well, history will show what we actually lived in.

Take care. Johnny.

>From: Johnny < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>To: “Me“ < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>Subject: Advice

>Date: 29 September, 2001 09:48 AM>

Hello Jerry!

I´ve got some good-for-shit advice for you, which I got from a guy whom the US made rich. His advice is that you should start doing some sport. When he arrived in the US for the first time, he got off the airplane in California. He spent several days sleeping on a beach where the Salvation Army served the homeless good quality breakfast, lunch and dinner for free. He said that some of the homeless living there with entire families wore suits and ties. I called him “Detective Colombo”, because he looked like Colombo’s twin brother. He put on a T-shirt and shorts, hanged a towel around his neck, took a tennis racquet in one hand and started running around the beach which immediately made him fall into the company of the upper class living near the beach. Then he started hitting the tennis ball against the wall, and it was there where some rich buffoon asked him to play together.

Those Americans supposedly really like to do sports and play games, mostly with new partners, so this kind of situation is quite common. When the rich American found out that “Colombo” is an educated architect, he immediately offered the latter a job to take care of his house and to be his masseur. Although “Colombo” had never been a masseur before, he nevertheless didn´t mind the offer. Anyone knows how to knead the meat. This is how he gradually got new contacts and eventually moved up even in his profession. So “Colombo” does not RECOMMEND YOU TO VISIT ORDINARY TAVERNS. According to Americans only a rabble goes there.

A real American frequents clubs, particularly some SPORT CLUBS.

You´ve got to separate yourself from that rabble and all sorts of loafers. This class of people never does any sports. When you practice any sport, it will distinguish you as a decent human being, and it won´t matter to them at all that you´re from Eastern Europe.

Take care. Johnny.

>From: “Me“ < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>To: editor < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>Subject: For Rastislav

>Date: 31 October, 2001 07:05 AM>

Rastislav, everything´s going to be all right. I´ll read the stories, but we could also write a script and penetrate the HolyWood with it. Daglass could direct it. Otherwise, how are you doing? What´s new with Simone?

J.

>From: editor < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>To: “Me“ < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>Subject: For Jerry

>Date: 2 November, 2001 08:37 AM>

Jerry, that Daglass is not your silliest nor wittiest idea. again I took a look at the movie Falling Down and it looks like he wants to smuggle something European into American films. in other words something old from the Old Continent. I could get contacts to the guys who change his tennis shoes. take a racquet, wash your shorts and move on after him. Johnny claims he will definitely have a game with you since at first look you´re new in the US. here in Slovakia we understand it that if you don´t have the highest ambitions, you don´t have to have any. the idea about Playboy got stuck hanging in the air like the semen in the most wonderful erotopical story about screwbunny on the plane. Pete is not leaving. he´s staying as a chief editor. but that´s OK too, because folks in Playboy could find out very quickly that “me speak inglish but not many”.

even things related to Simone are still hanging in the air. it´s already been almost a year since I saw her last. it´s simply an abduction and I am helpless like the least of Lilliputians in Gulliver’s Travels. we´ll make a movie about it. Daglass will play an old millionaire in it, who is going completely beeswax from all that dough. in his old age he amuses himself with breaking up families and stealing their children. the old lecher will really like it.

R.

ps. I started stitching up more shtories. if you say the heck with it, I´ll make my own book full of soft porno commercially tickling playful stories where birdies pop out of boxes. but you´ve got to at least read them and fix them up since you don´t want to write any more.

>From: Johnny < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>To: “Me“ < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>Subject: Advice 2

>Date: 3 November, 2001 09:48 AM>

Jerry:

It´s better to start up with something cheap and simple like the bowling pins or squash and other follies. When you start regularly visiting a club, you´ll make important contacts and you´ll find yourself on the other side of the social spectrum. “Colombo” said that afterwards it´s far easier to get a job.

The best job in Florida is to be a caretaker of someone´s house. As an educated white man, you have a big chance to find a job like that. Or some other jobs around houses or housework. “Colombo´s” friend, for example, started out by airing dogs. He used to air dogs in the park every morning for three tax-free bucks per dog, and on a good day he would make up to 100 bucks. He got the job through contacts, too. Contacts with prototypical Americans are essential for the newly arrived in the US. He also suggested that you should go to some town near Orlando where a Slovak community lives. Allegedly they´re very kind and they provided a roof over his friend’s head for free plus a decent job.

“Colombo” also talked about rich ladies. He also had such a friend there who would fall in among swimmers and hand fat ladies towels, deck chairs and sun umbrellas by the swimming pools. He also used to offer erotic services.

In addition, he gave you one more advice: Don´t get fat. Otherwise, it is said that you´ll lessen your chances for opportunities, because in the US there is a cult of physical appearance, and slim people are far more successful. Here in Slovakia everything is the same, in other words like in a country where the red communist cancer and new-era privatizers screwed it all up.

I´m starting to get depressed. Maybe I could write something.

Take care.

Johnny.

PS: Hang in there and stay away from strange white powder and water!

>From: “Me“ < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>To: Johnny < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>Subject: Optimism

>Date: 17 November, 2001 10:39 AM>

Johnny:

Thanks for your pieces of advice. I have a good feeling that you´re helping me, but I´m afraid that they are useless in most cases. After 9/11 the US has changed and a lot of old recipes don´t work anymore. It’s not all that easy to get into the clubs nowadays, because they’re watched by security guards. On top of that, Americans keep distance from foreigners because of their fear of terrorists. I´m struggling along the best I can. Rastislav is suggesting that we put together a book of stories again. Do you have anything written up as a result of that depression of yours? Because I don´t have anything so far...

J.

>From: Gaspar < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>To: “Me“ < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>Subject: What´s up?

>Date: 20 November, 2001 07:15 PM>

Hello Jerry!

>From: “Me“ < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>To: editor < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>Subject: For Rastislav

>Date: 30 November, 2001 5:13 PM

Rastislav:

We´re pushing Gaspar. But he´s afraid that when he gives us his stories, the world will significantly change. He´s afraid that the world will be completely different from what it had been before, and he worships the old world a lot.

J.

>From: editor < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>To: “Me“ < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>Subject: For Jerry

>Date: 1 December, 2001 12:45 PM>

Jerry:

when you talk to Gaspar, calm him down by saying that most likely there will be no surprising changes. we’ve got to know it best. we´ve already got some of those books rolled out. and the only thing that was a surprise was when the ground under our feet shook after the celebrations.

R.

>From: Johnny < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>To: “Me“ < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>Subject: Gaspar´s stories

>Date: 15 December, 2001 07:13 AM

Hello Jerry!

Christmas is approaching and I got seized by depression. My nerves have had it, because there is a trip by train to Nova Dubnica ahead of me. Actually there is no way to go there by car now, because it´s very cold and there´s a lot of snow. The last time I travelled by public transportation was sometime in the 90´s of the previous millennium. So I get seized by stress and mental difficulties. I´m going there by myself, because Eve wouldn’t be able to handle the trip.

At this point I must express my deep admiration for the courage you had when you set off for the distant land for good. I´ve got Gaspar´s number. I´m going to try to ring him and persuade him to betray his own self, even though I´m not sure whether Gaspar really has his own self. His interior is impenetrable like armor. He´s inexposable. Maybe he´s afraid that his literary work will damage this armor of his and that his essence would reveal itself totally naked; an essence not known before which would be shocking. I think I’ve even got some story of his on my computer somewhere – if I find it, I´ll send it to you.

Take care.

Johnny.

>From: Johnny < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>To: “Me“ < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>Subject: Astapoff´s Dog by Gaspar

>Date: 15 December, 2001 07:55 AM

>Attachment

ASTAPOFF´S DOG

by Peter Gaspar

In a pine forest, there was a stinking carcass of a big dog lying in the middle of a road. Just a few days ago it had been an outstanding helper of a local hunter named Astapoff. It used to be a sheer joy to watch the deft movements of the dog´s whole body and its billowing glossy hair as it darted out after an injured deer or a wild boar upon its master´s gesture. Now, only the stinking carcass is lying here smothered with a buzzing swarm of voracious yellow flies. Perhaps the flies have already eaten out its once beautiful hair, and now tufts of little warms are teeming under its thin layer of skin. In a few weeks there will not remain a single trace of the dog. Flies and warms will eat it up, fresh wind blowing through the thin forest will scatter the stench and the white bones will be covered by dust or they will be carried away by a turbid stream after the next copious rainfall. When it rains, the road made concave by water serves as a stream bed. Behind the forest there stands a small low cabin belonging to the best hunter in the guberniya. He is Astap Astapoff.

I will briefly describe him so one cannot be mistaken when meeting him. He is a giant hairy man, about 6 and a half feet tall and with broad shoulders at least 3 feet wide. He is strong like a full-grown bear and also incredibly fast. He has an excellent eyesight and hearing. For hunting he uses a quick-firing Winchester rifle brought from the US. He goes fishing in wild streams and shallow waters with his bare hands. He roasts his fish on embers and salts them with a salty clay from a Mongolian ravine. Then he eats them with gusto. He hunts the wild big game with his rifle. The dead dog on the road belonged to Astapoff. Most likely the dog had been hit by a car heading westward through the forest. Nobody had ever seen any car around here before and many hunters did not even have any idea what the car is. The hunters used to negotiate longer distances on horses or light trailers drawn by horses or dogs.

Now it has just dawned on me that during the description of Astapoff I forgot to mention that the hunter could run fast and persistently; he could run alongside a galloping deer for a few minutes while holding onto its neck with his arm. In my opinion, that is an astounding speed for a human being, if not straight out supernatural. On top of it, he would run from his cabin all the way up to the boundary of his guberniya and back in one day – something that probably no one can do anymore. He is an interesting fella, if he is still alive. I do not know why, but the tragic end of his dog is still poking in my mind.