story - The Avenue

The Avenue was a bar on the main boulevard, a place we’d go when we were students, broke and living at the university dorms. We’d go there for beer and a game of pool on the odd night when we weren’t waiting tables or mopping floors for extra cash, or when we didn’t have an essay or an exam due the next day – or did, for that matter. Regardless of what excuses we’d conjure for going there or not, the Avenue drew us in like a siren. Its enticing song always drowned out the voice of reason, as, for the young, the promise of a moment’s enchantment always overrides the conscience-call of duty.

When I think of the place now, in retrospect, a single color – red – offers itself as an accomplice to my inebriated memories. It seems to sum up the mood one would be in when there, a place that seemed a cross between a games parlor and a bordello. It wasn’t really one of the student hangouts; it attracted the blue-collar worker, the weekend footballer, the part-time stripper, the rebellious delinquent, the gay hairdresser, and the odd bum. Passing by the place on any given night, it was likely you would see a fight inside, and probably some vomit or blood on the pavement outside, with a body or two lying around. Someone would be angry, another would be harassed, but others would be dancing like none of it was happening. And there was always music. Whether the place was empty or full, or whether it was the arena for a full-on bar brawl between Serbs and Croats, or Greeks and Macedonians, the music was always blaring full-volume, as if aloof to all who were gathered before it, like a hierophant preaching to followers who had all gone astray. Red were the walls, red were the faces, red were the fingernails, and red was the blood-stained mop in the corner.

And so we went, although never without the sense of some foreboding danger, or a feeling of egregious prodigality. There would be packs of men rather than groups, occupying corners and tables. The girls would sport impenetrable hair-dos and faces caked in make-up, their bodies sprouting like deranged flowers out of stiletto roots, leather boots and stretch jeans. Eyes would move and catch glances with phenomenal perception and speed, sizing every movement, every body, every look thrown their way, no matter how seemingly imperceptible, no matter how seemingly insignificant. In among the crowd was a more or less steady pack of Croats hanging by the bar, the Avenue being run and owned by Croats. They were truculent folk with hearty voices and solid frames, and one always made sure never to prolong a gaze at one of the girls in their vicinity, since she was not only certainly a Croat, but her brother, cousin, boyfriend or chaperon was sure to be never more than three paces away from her. But these Croats, and even the Croat bouncers, gave the place a familiar atmosphere. They were the ones who ended any fight, whether they started it or not, and they kept the place to their liking, whether others liked it or not. The younger Croats would come too and emulate their older brothers, combing their hair in the boy’s room, gossiping about some hot chick who was usually called Marie or Mariana. "Za Dom", they would say when toasting, and every second sentence would end with a "pichku mater".

On one of those nights we were at the Avenue, just a friend and me. We took our place at the end of the bar, next to the floor-to-ceiling window that looked out onto the street. Having ordered our beers we got to talking and joking, asking a light off some guy in the corner and checking out some girls on the other side of the bar. The place was crowded, since it was a Thursday, and Thursday’s were big nights to go out. I noticed a girl across the bar who couldn’t have been more than eighteen years old. She was sitting on the lap of some guy who was looking nervous and awkward. She had one leg dangling off his lap and both arms slung loosely around his neck. All the while she was talking non-stop, but she seemed to be talking to herself because the guy was looking somewhere else and only on occasion did he acknowledge her logorrhea with a nod of the head or a condescending smile and an affected raise of the eyebrows. It seemed a shame. She was such a pretty girl, though she’d obviously had too much to drink. In the meantime my friend had got to talking with some girl who had sidled up beside him. I nudged myself toward their chatter, vacantly sucking on my cigarette and sipping from my beer, feeling invisible. I must have zoned out and been lost in thought for a while because I'd completely forgotten about the girl across the bar. Then I noticed that she was now standing right behind my friend and looking passively over to the barman, slightly swaying as she stood there. She glanced my way for a second before looking back at the barman. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her, still feeling invisible. She had such a natural, pleasant face, pretty, and with a nice body and a long neck. She was well-dressed, in a tight, one-piece blue toilette, as if she’d just come from a party or a ball. Her hair was light brown and long, and even though it was in a pony tail, there was enough length so that her hair would brush gracefully over her shoulders when she moved her head from side to side. But more than anything, I noticed her eyes. They were brown, and they were not large or piercing or the sort of eyes that pounce on other eyes with their intensity. Hers were the softest, the most delicate eyes, sensual and seductive. Drunk as she was, swaying though she was, her poise was graceful. And yet she wasn’t aware that anyone was looking at her.

I was mesmerized there while still sucking on my cigarette and sipping my beer out of habit. My mind was far away, occupied by this apparition. I was totally caught by surprise when she looked my way again. At first her gaze didn’t register with me, and we gazed vacantly at each other for what seemed – in hindsight – a long time, even though it was probably only for a second. Her eyes looked sleepy, as if ready to consent to anything, yet they had a strange allure, as if they were gazing from a distant, exotic island. Those dreamy brown eyes were now looking at me softly, invitingly. They seemed to be beckoning, regardless of the girl’s own volition. It was impossible to look away. Only when she staggered to the side was the spell broken. She made to come my way, trying to regain her composure, bumping shoulders with those who were seated at the bar, attracting sideway glances of mockery and disdain. But she never took her eyes from in front of her. I remember admiring her almost comical attempt at dignity and poise despite the state she was in. She finally made it to where my friend and I were sitting. She put her left hand on the bar counter to support herself as she looked at the two of us, one after the other, and not without a hint of mischief in those gorgeous eyes. By now even the blinking of her eyelids seemed an arduous task. She managed to keep her eyes open nevertheless. She stumbled onward, past my friend (who was amused and intrigued by all this), and straight over to me, coming up so close that I felt her small and firm breasts touch me below the chest. Her lily-white hands touched my shoulders and then made their way up to my neck. They were light as feathers, but firm, like a commitment. Her hands suddenly fell back down by her sides and she swayed slightly before balancing herself again with the help of the counter. Her eyes closed painfully slowly and her right hand went to her forehead as if to try and stave off the dizziness. When I saw her sway, my hand went to her waist, as a reflex. At that moment I looked up and noticed one of the Croatian men at the bar turning his eyes from me.

I guess I was expecting her to say something, but she didn’t. She stood there with her head in her hand and her eyes closed, looking precarious on her feet. My friend laughed her off and turned to continue conversing with the girl he’d met. I felt somehow responsible for this girl, as if it were my turn to take care of her in the bar. I told her to open her eyes. And when she did, I was spellbound again. Her soft brown eyes were moist and glazed and the moment they opened they were fixed on mine so completely, so affectionately that I was at a loss for words. I was still expecting her to say something, but she felt no such need. She simply eased her arms back up my shoulders and she pulled herself so near that I could smell her sweet and sour alcohol-tinged breath on my neck and on my lips. She never took her tired eyes off mine, and I couldn’t look away no matter how hard I tried. Then her face disappeared and I heard her warm breath and felt her moist tongue in my ear. Her breath seemed to make its way into every nerve ending of my body. I nearly lost my own breath. Her lips moved their way down my neck before she pulled away and looked at me again with those same dreamy brown eyes. I noticed this time that three other Croatians were looking at us, but this time they weren’t turning their faces away. They were looking straight at us, menacingly. They were making a clear point but I just couldn’t take heed. I was lost in this tired, drunk, broken little girl’s eyes. I asked for her name, but this seemed to bore her. Then she kissed me. Even though I didn’t respond to her kiss, I was almost in raptures. I heard my friend chuckle. When I opened my eyes I saw her staggering away. She disappeared into the crowd, among which the same three Croatian faces were staring at me like the Furies. My friend noticed this as well and gave me a little nudge and a nod of the head in their direction, indicating the potentially unpleasant situation we might be in if I didn’t pull myself together (“pull your head out of your arse,” I think were his words). I eventually did and I averted those menacing stares to go back to drinking and smoking and trying to mind my own business. But I kept thinking about those eyes.

I saw her again, about half-an-hour later. After having had some sort of argument with one of the Croats, during which he had pointed at me and she had angrily tried to get away from him. I saw her make her way toward me as before, clumsily, drunkenly, determinedly. I was amazed that she was still on her feet. Her eyes were half-closed and drowsy, but still so pretty as to draw my gaze upon her and not let go. I saw the expression on the faces of the other people around us. They were faces of condescension and disdain. I felt sorry for her, I almost pitied her, and it was a sickening feeling. I felt like maybe I could save her. I felt momentarily heroic. And she kept coming toward me until she was again right in front of me and looking into my eyes. Her hand touched my stomach, then ran up my chest. I saw over her shoulder the faces of the three Croats. I didn’t care. I felt someone’s fingers prodding my side. They were probably my friend’s, but I didn’t care. Only this girl mattered now. Her hands moved up over my shoulders and wrapped around my neck. She came up close to me, her lips were only centimeters from mine. I felt she was going to kiss me again. I wanted to kiss her too. This time my lips went forward. I saw from the corner of my eyes – just before they closed – the Croatians jostling through the crowd and making their way toward me. I didn’t care. I moved in, anticipating those soft, pink, warm, moist lips. But I didn’t reach them. Instead I felt her light hair brush and tickle against my mouth and then my chin and my neck, and when I looked down I saw that all she wanted was to rest her head on my shoulder. I was taken aback by her tenderness. When the Croats were only meters from me, trying to get around a crowded group, I put my arms around her. Our arms tightened. I saw six claws rise over her head as she pulled her face away and looked me in the eyes one last time. And as the six claws rose up around her, she smiled at me and said simply:

“Thank you.”

Her face disappeared as the thick, meaty claws clustered around me and dug into my shoulders, my arms, my neck and my waist. I was dragged away like prey as I bumped and crashed into sweaty, stinking, red bodies. Before I knew what had happened I found myself on the sidewalk, in front of the bar, looking back into the Avenue, if only to catch one last glimpse of that girl’s face. My friend came out to find me. He said some things but I couldn’t hear him. I felt as if I was awoken from a dream. I looked inside through the windows but I couldn’t see her anymore. I thought of her wastefulness and her grace, her beauty and her depravity, of how an embrace was all she sought to save her from a torrid sea of malice and disgrace. Her eyes glowed on in my head. They glowed on with purpose and determination, even though they were always far, far away...

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It was a cold night, probably another Thursday night (though I can’t remember well) when three of us decided to go to the Avenue after drinking at the dorms. We found ourselves sitting in the same part of the bar as on that night when I saw the girl with the faraway eyes. It was my favorite part of the bar. You could see the street behind you, like an aquarium into which this city had long since been thrown in with its denizens forced to swim around aimlessly for the course of their short and vapid lives.

I turned my head back and the usual suspects appeared before me: the cigarette squeezed between the fingers, the beer nestled in the hand, the cheers from us, and the Za Dom’s from those around us, the smell of cheap cologne and hairspray, the fringes and the perms, the yobbo’s, the pichka’s, the wog’s, the tussles, the boasts, the shouts, the sleazes, the sluts, the losers and the pool sharks, and the red. There was no place I’d rather be at that moment.

As the three of us sat around a table and drank ourselves into oblivion, a lady came and sat herself down on the bar counter behind us. At first sight she seemed young, but it was soon obvious that she was probably in her forties. Her body was curvaceous and would have knocked many a young girl out of contention; nevertheless, despite her heavy make-up and her jet-black hair, her age was legible along the contours and minuscule shadows on her face. She wore a revealing dress that showed her legs off. She was looking at us with a mischievous smile, and when she started talking I couldn’t help but notice her drawling accent and the strange words she used. I didn’t know what it was exactly, but I felt there was something vaguely familiar about her. What was most striking about her speech was an ecstatic “Yahoo!” that came at the end of every sentence, with the last syllable pronounced as if there were a “w” to finish it off.

We were talking the usual bar talk: all questions and answers and affected mirth to start off, with intentions hiding behind words rather than inhabiting them. After every sentence came the “Yahoo” and soon we kept at the conversation just out of amusement at hearing the “Yahoo.” She pampered our vanity, and as she started moving in closer, eventually sitting at our table and touching our arms and legs as we bantered, it didn’t take long for us to figure out she was a hooker (us being perceptive university students and all). What was harder to comprehend was why she was spending her time on us when it was obvious we were a bunch of broke students. The fact that we'd count how much money we had left after we bought each drink would’ve tipped any hooker off that we were a collective waste of time.

But we kept talking anyway, and I noticed one of my friends - Glen - getting insidiously nastier and nastier toward the hooker, despite his beaming smile and flustered face. Soon there was nothing insidious about it – it was just downright malicious. He asked her if that was her real hair color; and how many bottles of dye she needed to hide her grey hair; and then, to top it all off, how much she charged for doing it “up the keghole” (his exact words). Although we’d tried to smooth things out in the conversation until that point, we were now stunned and speechless. The hooker was silent, looking Glen in the eyes and fuming. We were just having a good time, enjoying some female company and a few drinks, but Glen had lost it. Granted, he was in a bit of a rut that day. He'd declared his love for some guy, and his declaration had been left unrequited. He was probably in no mood to stand even the sight of a woman since the guy he loved told him he had a girlfriend. As much as we told him that at least he didn’t lose him to another guy, he wasn’t consoled.

I tried to explain this as an aside to the hooker, but she was gone in a flash. We settled back down on our stools and laughed it off, though our eyes kept searching the bar for the hooker, just to see if she’d start up any trouble. She had had the most ferocious expression on her face as she left our table. Soon enough, we saw her at the other end of the bar shouting at the bouncer as she pointed hysterically our way. We looked at each other in silent agreement that we’d better leave. Sure enough, a bouncer approached us and told us what we already knew we’d better do, but with the added impetus of adding his views on how soon we should do it... i.e. “You should get the fuck out, NOW!”

Before the bouncer had finished expressing his views, we saw some large object fly past our heads and crash into the window behind us. A half-full bottle of beer had mercifully guided its way between our confused crania as the screaming hooker tore her way from her side of the bar and toward our baffled selves. The fight was on. Before I could shout at Glen and Bahram to grab their coats and get out, the hooker had leapt past the bouncer and started slapping and scratching Glen’s face. The bouncer (who was muscular enough that he looked like a balloon filled with marbles) turned and tried to subdue her, but now Glen was in hysterics and lashed back at her with frantic (and very wayward) slaps of his own, all the while screaming “BITCH, YOU FUCKING BITCH!” Then one of his slaps went straight over her head and landed plum on the nose of the bouncer who was restraining her. That was the moment when our hearts shrank and fell into our stomachs. Blood gushed from the nose of the bouncer as he punched Glen in the chest and sent him flying back into the glass. Bahram and I, who had tried to separate them, ended up receiving the hooker’s kicks, one of which got Bahram in the shin and sent him reeling in pain on the floor. By now the other bouncer had come into the fray – unbeknownst to Glen – and just as he got up and sent a punch at the first bouncer (who was trying to tend to his bloody nose), his flying fist caught the right jaw of the second bouncer who had made his poorly-timed entrance into the melee. Some Croat regulars joined in, presumably to defend the honor of the hooker, and the Avenue was again a mess of blood, flesh, hair, beer and screams. It was like seeing a twister rip through a mosh-pit.

Luckily, Bahram and I were just able to grab Glen and pull him out, though we were well aided by a good push from a group of angry yobbo’s from the other side (probably the hooker’s regular customers). We all flew out and hit the pavement with a thud, Bahram and me in irritation, and our friend Glen in hysterical laughter. We must have looked like we were straight out of some spaghetti western, flying out of the saloon like a bunch of cowboys – except that we were a Turk, an Iranian, and a homosexual. Not your average cowboy material.

We picked ourselves up, still hearing the screams of the hooker from inside, and we waited for Glen to cease rolling around on the cold pavement in fits of laughter. We were pissed off, sore, beaten, broke, drunk off our tits, and even slightly embarrassed. There was of course only one sensible thing to do: go to another bar. We segued on to another seedy joint just a few doors down called “The Bin,” which was an appropriate name for this place. It was next door to a Chinese restaurant called the “Dragon Inn,” (what else?) and the combined pungency of MSG and stale beer made for a strange mutant odor, sort of like sweet-and-sour shoe-leather with a sprinkling of pollen.

The night was still young so we went up to the bar and perched ourselves onto some bolted-down stools that were near enough to the counter to hurt our knees and high enough from the floor to keep our feet dangling annoyingly. It was like being crucified in a closet without a foot rest – very uncomfortable. We drank to our health and went over the events of the night with the usual how-about-that’s and did-you-see’s, laughing heartily with the relief of those who have gotten through something they would’ve wished they hadn’t but were now pleased they had, if only for anecdotal posterity’s sake. The sense of having overcome some sort of danger and done it together added to our cheer and we sank the drinks back, though slower than our spirits demanded of us, due to the obvious financial constraints we were under.

Eventually Bahram and I realized that Glen was missing. He'd gone to take a piss but was absent an awfully long time (or so it seemed – we were pretty drunk). In fact it seemed just enough time to manage to be able to take a piss, bend over the bowl, have a hurl, and then curl up in a little ball on the yellow-stained tiles whimpering “sleep” like a stranded sheep. We checked the female toilets (which he always preferred) and then we checked the male ones, but he was nowhere to be found. We began to worry, especially considering the state he was in, not to mention the state we were in, none of these factors being conducive to a game of hide-and-seek at this time of night. The inevitable thought crept its agonizing way into our heads, and then clouded over our eyes as we looked at each other and saw the figure of our own unenviable fate manifested in human form. We didn’t even need to speak. We paid for our last round of beers and made our solemn way back to the Avenue, as if we were about to go over the top at the Somme.

We got there expecting violence and disaster, and maybe even rattling Hunnish machine-guns. Instead, we walked right in and – lo and behold – we saw the barman pouring strawberry vodka into two shot-glasses placed before our friend Glen and the hooker, who were laughing away and slapping each other’s backs as if they were long-lost buddies. Now Glen keeled forward in hysterics, now the hooker tipped to the side or backward in giggling fits, all as they slammed down their little pink drinks. We were stunned. Bahram and I walked in like a pair of logs, but before long we were all having fun, reminiscing about the events of the night as we kept drinking, courtesy of the hooker.

We got out of there eventually. Glen wanted to hug the bouncer whose nose he’d caused to bleed, and had luckily not broken. The bouncer wouldn’t have any of it. Bahram was so drunk he wanted to tip the barman, but he realized none of us had any money left. I wanted to sing some lines from an old Ustashe song a Croatian ex-girlfriend of mine had taught me, but I just managed to curtail myself, afraid that in my drunkenness I might have confused it with an old Chetnik song a Serbian friend had taught me. We made it to another bar, called “The Warren,” where I said I expected people should be fucking like rabbits, but nobody seemed to get it. As we approached the bar, some guy grabbed the hooker’s ass and blurted out an affectedly suggestive “Hi there,” which the hooker responded to with a stiff middle finger and a comment on the aforementioned guy’s unenviable genital anatomy for all to hear.

And so, as we were all getting drowsy from a long night, the hooker told us about herself. She told us about her hometown, down in Victoria, about her childhood as an orphan, about how she was raped when she was 14, about the alcoholic Croatian guy she had been married to and divorced years ago, about the dingy little truck-stop towns where she had lived, where she had worked as a waitress or a barmaid or a stripper or a whore. She told us about the roach-infested motels, the decrepit one-room boarding houses, the tenement blocks, the dole-queues, the coupons, the diapers… her daughter. I looked up at her when she mentioned her daughter. Bahram was teetering back and forth, Glen was snoring with his head on the bar. I guess I was the only one left listening to her. It seemed she was used to people not listening. When she mentioned her daughter she paused for a second. A look of affection came across her face, as if she’d remembered something that made her happy, perhaps the only thing that had ever made her happy in her wretched life. It took me aback to see her like that, to see this chink in her armor of tough indifference to her unenviable fate. I asked about her daughter. She told me about her brown hair, her soft white skin, her skinny little body, how she was only 16 and going to high school, how she had bought her a beautiful blue dress for her prom night, how she was the most beautiful girl she’d ever seen, even though she was aware she was her mother. She paused again and I saw her eyes fill up. Another guy, a different guy, rubbed his thick, calloused hand through her hair and said “G’day luv” with a grotesque testosterone-infused voice. But this time she didn’t react at all. She just looked ahead, into the distance, with faraway eyes, dilated and blue, eyes that seemed somehow so familiar to me, and she just said:

“Her eyes are brown.”

I was confused for a moment.

“Whose eyes?” I asked.

“My daughter’s eyes,” she said. “They’re brown.”

A dark, eyeliner-dyed tear trickled down her left cheek, leaving a trail in the thick foundation, sliding slowly, woefully down her face. I didn’t know what to say, or if there was anything to say. I hesitatingly put my hand on her shoulder, squeezed it nervously and took my hand away. She came to and wiped her eyes and smiled bravely. She turned to me as if grateful for listening.

“I have a photo of her you know, would you like to see it?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said.

She took out the photo and I took a look... and then another, more prolonged look.

“I told you she was pretty,” she said.

The brown hair, the white skin, the small pink lips, and those brown eyes, those brown, faraway eyes. It was the girl I’d met in the Avenue months ago, and the photo was taken on the same night, in that same blue dress, just before her prom. My mouth was agape. I looked up from the picture and looked in her mother’s eyes. Although they were blue, they were the same eyes. I looked down at the girl’s picture one last time before I handed her back the photo. She was very proud of her daughter, proud of my reaction, beaming as she placed the photo back in her purse. She seemed happy.

We were all quiet now. My friends snoozing; myself and her lost in thought. She didn’t speak anymore. She gathered herself together, paid the bill, turned to me and said she would have to move on. I just looked at her quietly. She kissed me on the cheek and smiled.

“Thank you,” she said. Then she left.

I scraped my friends off their seats and we made our long and dizzy way back to the dorms. As we passed by the Avenue we saw her sitting there chatting up some guy. We looked no more and just kept on walking.

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I thought about our friend Glen’s strange reconciliation with the lady that night, but I never asked how it had all transpired, and how it had all been resolved. In all our later drinking that night, nobody had brought it up. I guess, in retrospect, it would’ve been an interesting story, but at that moment it would have just spoiled that extraordinary reconciliation. He told me he didn’t remember anything that night after “The Bin” anyway, so I guess we’ll never know what happened or how it happened. I guess it’ll remain one of those little miracles that come around whenever we least expect it, and in places where we would never even recognize it. Besides, we don’t have to know everything. Sometimes it’s nice to find there’s still a place left in our world for little miracles.

In any case, it’s been a long time since I’ve been to the Avenue. I’ve since become something else, a different person, and so have my friends. I heard from someone that it was no longer there, that it had briefly changed ownership, given way to another seedy dive, and then become a bistro where pretentious prats wear scarves and talk about Derrida. Sometimes I miss the Avenue. I remember the pool game with the stripper who had a black eye and buck teeth and sang us a song when she lost; I remember the small flower a girl had given me as we walked home one night in the cold winter air, eating greasy chips and chico rolls; I remember the man who wouldn’t stop talking, even when there was nobody around, and kept saying he was sorry, over and over again. Among the rubble of deserted dreams and wasted lives, I remember finding those rare glimpses of tenderness, and sometimes even comedy, trying desperately to relieve themselves from an overwhelming tragedy.

And of course I always remember those faraway eyes, as I remember the gratitude of strangers.