The Black Poet Dreams of Buggering
an Old Stalinist on the Nevsky Prospect

IT’S HORRIBLY HOT. The Carré St. Louis is full of bare-chested drunkards. The sticky air stinks of beer. Upstairs in the room we’re roasting. It’s hell, I’m telling you. Reason enough to go downstairs. Only Beelzebub could fuck in this heat. His moaning bugs me. Fire must be shooting out of his mouth up there.

The Carré St. Louis is not your average place. That mossy ground. All the filthy brats you could ask for. A girl photographing Pauline Julien’s house.

A bum comes up for a hand-out.

“Got any spare change?”

“No.”

“That’s all right, I’ll tell you anyway.”

He takes a tiny scrap of paper out of his pocket.

“Look. What do you see?”

“A map of Africa cut out from Time magazine.”

He looks me in the eye.

“You’re right,” he says. “How did you know?”

“It says so under the map.”

“Oh, you’re an intellectual!”

“I know how to read. And how to use my fists too.”

He raises his left hand to show he doesn’t want trouble.

“All right, all right. Show me your country on the map.”

“Ivory Coast. Right there.”

I point to the first country I can make out.

“Ivory Coast! Is that where you’re from? I worked in the Ivory Coast. I know your president.”

All bums know all the African presidents. Why doesn’t he introduce me to the Canadian prime minister? I haven’t even been introduced to the local crime lord!

I SIT DOWN on a park bench with the book I started last night. Written by a certain Limonov. A Russian dissident. The “different dissident” approach. Instead of wasting his time playing the prophet of doom, Limonov gets off with the blacks in Harlem. His book is called The Russian Poet Prefers Big Blacks. It begs a rebuttal: The Black Poet Dreams of Buggering an old Stalinist on the Nevsky Prospect. New Frontiers Publications.

The Iron Curtain seen as a giant chastity belt.

BOUBA CAME back from the SAVI, a kind of emergency center for migrants and immigrants. You practically have to provide a complete C.V. and a certificate of good conduct and safe morals before they’ll slip you twenty dollars. The working class has had its troubles since the dawn of the industrial revolution. Bouba sold himself today; tomorrow will be my turn. He came back and bought food at Pellatt’s. The usual fare: potatoes, rice and chicken (the neck only).