The Old Stories Read online

The Old Stories

  a short story collection by

  Alen Kapidzic

  Translated by

  Petra Pintaric

  Cover design by

  Sanja Kapidzic

  Creative commons licence

  Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported

  Alen Kapidzic 2013.

  Contents

  Sunday

  The Cell Phone

  A Three-Hundred-Tone Rehearsal for EKV

  A Handful of Rags

  The Gloves

  Beloved

  The Axe

  The Shelter

  Biography

  Sunday

  "Sunday morning I'm waking up

  Can't even focus on a coffee cup

  Don't even know who's bed I'm in

  Where do I start

  Where do I begin"

  Chemical Brothers "Where do I begin"

  "Ding-dong!"

  Gorki1 stood at the door peering through the peephole.

  "Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong!!!" He was pounding wildly on the doorbell, staring through the wrong end of the peephole. The tiny light in the hole went dark and he removed his finger from the doorbell. The lock clicked and the door opened wide. Gorki barged into the apartment disregarding the sleepy, half-clothed girl who remained standing in the doorway. He went straight into the kitchen, turned on the radio and started searching for a station.

  "You have to listen to this shit!"

  The girl shut the worn-out pale green door and tapped barefoot after him. She sat down at the table, squinting from the avalanche of light. Her mouth was dry, she could hardly swallow, and she crinkled her face even more.

  "Fuck! It’s over! Son of a bitch! You should have heard it! The worst crap that Croatian folk music ever crapped out! I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard the lyrics! Do you know how the chorus goes? "I’m happy with you even when you cheat on me…" Can you believe that? She’s fucking happy when the guy she’s with sleeps around! That’s insane! Totally brain damaged! Lobotomy, my friend! Total lobotomy!" he said, turning away from the radio and pausing. He looked at her, tilting his head so as to observe her face better.

  "Do you want some coffee? Huh? Yummy coffee. Dark. Hot. Mmmm… Yes? Okay? Okay! One coffee coming right up!"

  He started making the coffee as if she had come over to his place and not the other way around.

  "Sorry for waking you, but I couldn’t bear all that stupidity. I thought you’d be awake by now," he rambled on. "Was last night crazy? Did you miss me at your lesbian party?" he said, turning towards her grinning. She slurped, her eyelids half open, stretching out her cheeks into something that could be interpreted as a smile.

  The tray with the cups on it shone in the morning sunlight. Gorki turned his face towards the window and closed his eyes. He felt the warmth on his eyelids. They were silent.

  "What time is it?" she asked after taking a few sips of her coffee.

  "Time is irrelevant."

  She looked at him.

  "Do you know that line?"

  She took another sip.

  "My buddy from elementary school, Ringo, you know him? I’ve talked about him before. No? Doesn’t matter. He was waiting for the bus once in Opatija but the bus was nowhere in sight. So he’s waiting and waiting, but nothing. And since the retard doesn’t have a watch, he looks around and sees some guy standing at the bus stop as well. He ponders, "Should I ask him for the time?" Yes, no, yes, no, and finally decides to ask. The guy replies: "Time is irrelevant." Ringo becomes super confused. He’s like, how is it irrelevant? What about the bus? The other guy replies, "Son, Jesus said, blah, blah, blah…" Fuck, the guy was a Jehovah’s Witness! Can you imagine that? The bus finally arrives. Ringo hurries to get on and sits in the back so the guy wouldn’t see him. Then he sees the guy getting on, looking around for him. He sees him and sits next to him the entire bus ride, saying things like, "Jesus, judgment day, we all have to repent…" Imagine that! Horrible!"

  "You’ve told me that story before."

  "Really? I don’t remember. Are you sure?"

  "Yes."

  "Fuck! Looks like I’m going senile. I should think about retiring soon…" he said with a worried expression on his face which then turned into a huge grin.

  "What time is it?" she asked again.

  "Eight."

  "Eight?" she said gawking at him. "What’s wrong with you? Do you know when I got home? At 4:30 a.m.! And you go waking me at 8 a.m. because of some stupid song! You’re a total moron!"

  "Eleven thirty."

  "Huh?" she said confused, frowning.

  "Seven hours of sleep is more than enough, even after a rough night of drinking," he stated in a serious voice, then smiled again.

  She finished her coffee.

  "I’m going to brush my teeth."

  He tried hard not to stare at her small behind that moved rhythmically under her long T-shirt. He heard the sound of the shower from the bathroom and the cock-a-doodle-do jingle on the radio.

  "I don’t get why I keep listening to the folk music radio station," he said to himself.

  He got up and switched the station. He was looking for Svid radio station2, but he couldn’t find it, even though the studio was only a few doors down.

  "For fuck’s sake! What slackers! No one can do anything right in this country."

  He turned off the radio. "Do you know that this is the age of slackers?" he yelled, poking his head in the hallway. The shower was louder than he was.

  He tidied up the table and washed the dishes that had been sitting there for several days. She came out of the bathroom, all freshened up, drying her short hair with a towel. She sat at the table.

  "I wouldn’t mind some more coffee."

  "I just did all the dishes!" his voice sounded annoyed. She put the towel around her neck and looked at him with the sweetest look in the world. The dark lines of her wet hair shone as they fell on her forehead. She fluttered her eyelashes, pretending to be super sweet. That made him smile. He grabbed the kettle from the sink.

  "I have a song for you. You’re gonna love it."

  He went into the living room and rummaged through the CDs. She heard the rustling of the speakers as he turned up the volume.

  "Sunday morning I’m waking up…" sang Beth Orton.

  "Hits the spot, right?"

  "Very funny," she replied.

  "So? How was the party?"

  "Crazy awesome." She felt the cold of the tiles on her feet and lifted them onto the chair.

  "No, I’m serious."

  "Why the mean grin then?"

  "What mean grin?"

  "Come on, don’t play dumb."

  "OK! Did you make out with any girls?"

  "Why does it matter?"

  "It does matter!"

  "You’re jealous for no reason."

  "I’m not jealous!"

  Her cheeks stretched out into a smile.

  "You’re a darling when you get angry like that for no reason."

  "I’m not angry," he said staring at the floor.

  "Come on, we’ve talked about this a million times. If I ever decide I want a boyfriend, you’ll be the first on my list. You know that," she said leaning over her coffee cup and caressing his face. "I’m gonna go get dressed."

  He stared at the table.

  "You were saying something while I was in the shower. What were you saying?" She startled him while he was deep in his thoughts.

  "I said that this was the age of slackers."

  "What?"

  He got up and turned down the volume on the stereo.

  "I said that this was the age of slackers."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, everyone’s slacki
ng off."

  "You mean everyone’s working under the table?"

  He heard the sound of fabric slipping down her body.

  "Well, that too. But that’s not what I meant. I meant to say that everyone’s doing a shitty job. Get it? Nothing works the way it should. Look at this Svid radio station! Their studio is only two doors over and you can’t get any reception in your apartment! Everyone’s just trying to take the easy road. No one cares. Just look at these kids in school. They disgust me! They have no character! They don’t do anything all school year and then at the end of the year they beg their teachers for a D! They beg for a passing grade without any shame. They don’t give a fuck about what their teachers think about them! They just want to get by by taking the easy road. It’s terrible! TERRIBLE!"

  She opened the door and came out.

  "Yea, but wait. You have to understand them, too. They are being taught totally useless things. It’s no wonder they’re the way they are."

  "Okay! Yea, you’re right there. Our education system sucks, but for fuck’s sake, can’t they have some self-respect at least?"

  "No one ever got rich off self-respect."

  "Fuck, does everything revolve around money?"

  "No, but you starve to death without it."

  He went silent. They sat in the living room. The CD stopped playing.

  "We need to leave this world," he concluded.

  "Do you want to listen to the radio?"

  "No."

  "Should I turn it on?"

  "Don’t. All the radio receivers in Croatia are set to folk music stations."

  She got up, walked over to the bar and pulled out a small Altoids tin box. She sat back down next to him on the couch, took out a rolling paper from the tin and ripped off a large piece.

  "You wanna make the filter?"

  He took the piece of cardboard that she held out for him and started rolling it.

  "Do you know that the folk music station has provided a totally new interpretation to The Odyssey?"

  She looked at him questioningly, and frowned.

  "You see, when Odysseus was passing by the Island of the Sirens, they weren’t playing harps. Instead, the folk music station was playing through the cracks of time. And everyone in Ancient Greece who heard this folk music…"

  "Ha, ha, ha, ha…" she laughed out loud. You’re crazy! Ha, ha, ha…"

  "…would throw themselves into the sea… Get it?" he said, passing her the filter. "The only solution was to seal their ears with candle wax. Maybe we should do the same? What do you think?"

  "Ha, ha, ha…"

  The smell of resin spread throughout the apartment. When she put out the butt, she asked him, her eyes glossy, " What were you saying about that song this morning?"

  "What song?"

  "That song that goes "I believe in you when the dawn breaks…"

  He said something silly that rhymed with the line of the song and they both burst out laughing. Gorki was rolling around on the floor and banging his fists on the carpet. Every time they looked at each other, they would laugh even harder. Tears were running down their cheeks.

  "Sunday, I love these Sundays with you!" Gorki said theatrically when he finally caught some air. Then he started laughing like crazy again.