Fun Lovin’ Criminals
March 31, 2010 by admin
Filed under Linger Longer
Linger Longer: Driving the Trans-Siberian
Chapter 10: Fun Lovin’ Criminals
Heading out into the street feeling good and buzzing from
the wine, we storm through the centre of Parnu in search
of a bar. Turning left, we spy a pub full of holidaymakers
sitting at tables outside.
‘Hey, can you hear that?’ Si smiles, as we approach the
pub.
‘Hear what?’
‘I think it’s Roy Chubby Brown … it is! It’s Roy Chubby
Brown!’
Grinning, I look eagerly around. ‘No way! Where?’
‘He’s not actually here, you idiot,’ Si snaps. ‘Listen to
the music coming from those speakers.’
‘Oh yeah, it bloody is as well! Who’d have thought it?
Britain’s crudest seaside performer has made it big on the
Baltic. Have you ever heard him do the routine about the
cup of tea and the used tampon?’
Si shakes his head vigorously. ‘No, and I really don’t
need to hear it now.’
‘Why the hell are they playing, “Alice? Who the fuck is
Alice?” in a family pub, anyway?’
‘They probably don’t understand the words.’
As we pass a young couple and their two children eating
a meal at a table outside, fat Roy belts out the chorus,
“Alice, who the fuck is Alice?” from the speakers
positioned directly above their heads. I glance over at the
parents and wait for their horrified reaction, but there
isn’t one – they seem totally oblivious to the bad language
and continue to tuck innocently into their dinner.
‘Excellent!’ I chuckle. ‘Roy Chubby Brown in Estonia.’
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Si skips inside the pub. ‘Makes a change from Britney, I
suppose.’
Toasting the night, we sink a couple of delicious
Estonian beers to the, uh … delightfully repeated vocals of
Roy Chubby Brown. Tables of merry holidaymakers provide
a vibrant atmosphere, and feeling well oiled we go in
search of the nightlife of Parnu.
The queue outside the Mirage nightclub contains a bizarre
mixture of characters.
‘Hey, Si! Check out the dude with the orange mullet and
green crocodile skin loafers … nice!’
‘You think that’s bad,’ he smiles. ‘What about Betty Boop
over there in the white fur coat?’
‘Bloody hell, and I thought there were some freaks in
Vegas.’
Handing over our jackets in exchange for a plastic token,
we race up the stairs and enter the club. Turning left into
the main room, the dance floor is already crowded with an
interesting mixture of smiley, eccentric looking individuals.
We find a spot at the end of the bar and order a couple
of whiskeys. To the right of the bar a group of girls
dance in a circle around their handbags … Essex style.
‘Hot potatoes!’ Si yells. ‘Check out all the women!’
We slam back a few more drinks before finding the confidence
to explore.
‘Head for those tables at the back!’ Si yells over the noise
of the electronic dance music.
As I push my way through the middle of the dance floor,
I suddenly hear Estonia’s Eurovision Song Contest entry,
‘The 80’s coming back’ burst from the speakers. Everybody
dancing instantly goes crazy, and a saucy looking blonde
girl in a short yellow skirt grabs Si by the hand and begins
dancing around him in circles. Swept away by the crowd
I’m pushed towards the edge of the dance floor, and grabbing
hold of the wall I feel relieved to have escaped the
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humiliation of being forced to dance. Amusing myself, I
watch Si from a distance as he tries to impress the girl
with some of the new moves he had been working on in
Prague. Chuckling, I turn to the guy in a black leather jacket
standing next to me.
‘All right, mate,’ I smile.
Ignoring me, the guy licks his lips and continues to drill
holes into the butt cheeks of a girl dancing nearby. He suddenly
turns to me.
‘You Arab,’ he grunts with a strong Russian accent.
‘Arab? No, I’m English.’
‘You look like Arab.’
He throws me a cold stare.
‘I from Chechnya,’ he snaps, pointing proudly at his
chest.
Removing a small bottle of vodka from his jacket pocket,
he unscrews the lid and pours some into my glass.
‘Nastrovia!’ he nods, slamming back his drink.
‘I’m Chris,’ I grin, stretching out my hand. ‘What’s your
name?’
‘Sergei. I from Grozny.’
‘Are you on holiday?’
‘Holiday? Nyet, I live here five years.’
‘Oh, I see. Do you work here? You have job?’
‘Nyet. I Chechen criminal,’ he replies sternly.
I flash a smile. ‘You’re a Chechen criminal?’
He nods. ‘Everyone think Chechens are criminals, so I
criminal.’
Offering Sergei a cigarette, I listen with intrigue.
‘Very very bad in Chechnya, too much guns, so I leave. I
come to Parnu … why you here?’ he asks, lighting my
cigarette.
‘I drove here from England with my brother. We’re heading
to Vladivostok.’
Sergei laughs out loud. ‘Vladivostok?’
‘Yeah.’
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‘You drive to Vladivostok?’
‘Yep. In our Ford Sierra.’
‘Ah, you make joke.’
‘No, it’s true! We’re on our way to Vladivostok.’
He laughs again before refilling our glasses.
‘Impossible!’ he cries. ‘Not even Chechen soldier do
this.’
‘Why not?’
Sergei draws a finger across his throat. ‘Too dangerous,
many bandits … you will die!’
Suddenly, a guy in a grey roll neck jumper appears next
to Sergei, and I quickly discover that Azamat is also from
the city of Grozny in Chechnya. Sergei talks to him quickly
in Russian, and they both turn to me and laugh.
‘You will die,’ Azamat repeats, tossing his head back
and roaring with laughter.
Desperate to change the subject, I interrupt the laughter
and ask Azamat what he is doing in Parnu.
‘I Chechen criminal,’ he replies proudly.
‘You as well?’ I smile.
He frowns and turns to Sergei. Sergei turns to me, and
nods.
I clear my throat. ‘Oh, uh … cool!’
Across the crowded dance floor I suddenly spot Si pushing
his way towards the bar, so I quickly offer my new
criminal friends a drink.
‘You want vodka?’ I ask, knowing that this is a stupid
question.
Grinning at me insanely, Sergei pats me hard on the
back. ‘Da. Spaceeba, Chris from England, spaceeba.’
* * *
As I wait patiently at the bar, Chris suddenly leaps onto
the stool beside me.
‘Hey, hot shot! How’s it hanging?’
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‘Chris, you numb-nuts! Where did you disappear to?’
‘I got swept away by the crowd.’
‘Bollocks!’
‘I did!’
‘Of course you did. I forgot you’re a pussy when it comes
to dancing.’
‘No I’m not.’
‘Stop being so self-conscious and just ride the music.’
Chris laughs. ‘“Ride the music”, you cheesy git. I’m
quite happy chilling out on the sidelines, thank you very
much.’
‘OK, fair enough. Right, Chris, its drinks time! I need to
order a cocktail for the cutie on the dance floor.’
‘The girl in the yellow skirt?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Good lad, she’s fit as fuck!’
‘I know. I think I’m in love.’
‘Not again!’
I frown. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Si, you fall in love with all the girls.’
‘No I don’t … hey, why don’t you come over? I’ll introduce
you to her mates.’
‘No way, they’re all fat.’
‘I thought you liked a girl with a bit of meat around the
hips.’
‘Yeah, but not half a fucking cow! Besides, I’ve been
chatting to these two Chechen criminals.’
‘What?’
‘Yeah, Sergei and Azamat, they’re both criminals from
Grozny in Chechnya. I’m gonna buy them a drink!’
‘Wait a minute … back up, buddy boy. Chechen criminals,
as in criminals from Chechnya?’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘What kind of criminals?’
Chris shrugs. ‘No idea, I didn’t ask … I’ll ask them!’
‘Noooo … don’t be a twat, they could be dangerous. Use
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your noodle. I’d stay well away from them if I were you,
it can only lead to trouble.’
‘Nah … they seem OK. Well, as OK as two Chechen
criminals can be.’
Ordering a round of shots from the bar, Chris balances
them on a small tray and shuffles over to his new friends.
Leaving me with the bill, I hand over the cash and dance
with my cocktails over to Eva and her weighty chums.
Approaching her from across the dance floor, I’m immediately
reminded how beautiful she is. Taking the drink
out of my hand, she leans over and kisses me softly on the
cheek.
‘You very good boy, Simon.’
‘Thanks,’ I smile. ‘You very good girl.’
She reaches over and puts a finger to my lips. ‘Nyet good
girl, Simon, I am naughty girl.’
‘Really, why?’
‘I will not tell you,’ she grins cheekily.
I raise an eyebrow. ‘Now I’m really intrigued. Come on,
why are you a naughty girl?’
Looking unsure whether to tell me her secret, she tries to
distract me by pushing her firm breasts against my chest
in an effort to get me to dance. It works, but only for a brief
moment.
‘OK, don’t tell me, then.’
‘If I tell you, you not like me anymore.’
‘Yes I will.’
‘I have baby,’ she whispers, dropping her gaze.
‘A baby?’
‘See, now you don’t like me.’
Drawing Eva close, we begin kissing passionately in the
middle of the dance floor. Grabbing my arm, she leads me
across the club to an empty booth at the back of the club.
Pushing me inside, she follows close behind and jumping
across my lap she begins kissing me wildly. Surprised at
first by her enthusiasm – I quickly relax, and tenderly
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caressing her soft thighs beneath the hem of her skirt, I
feel bizarrely like I’m fourteen years old again.
* * *
I stumble out of the club and onto the wet pavement. A
police car with its blue flashing lights is parked on the
curb outside. Two cops leaning against the bonnet laugh at
the pissed up clubbers, and eye up the girls as they dance
around in their high heels. Spinning around, I see Si wave
a hand in the air as he disappears around the corner with
the blonde girl he’d met on the dance floor. I consider
chasing after them, but decide to leave them to it. I lost
Sergei and Azamat somewhere between going to the toilet
and chatting up Betty Boop, who turned out to be a freak
from the dark corners of Berlin. I try to stay focused
despite feeling severely mashed. Everybody standing outside
the club begins to either climb into a taxi, or disappear
on foot down the main shopping street. Not wishing
to be left alone with two bored policemen, I follow their
lead and head off in search of the hotel. Staggering
through the dimly lit streets, I turn left and then right in
the direction of a big road, which I think is near to where
we’re staying. Within minutes I’m lost. The wind starts to
pick up and a large spot of rain splashes across my forehead.
I scan the area for any recognizable landmarks, but
there aren’t any – not one. A brightly painted church on
the corner looks vaguely familiar, although, I can’t be sure.
Breaking a smile, I begin to laugh.
‘Ha-ha! Where-am-I?’ I sing out loud.
I stop laughing.
Taking a few deep breaths, I try to think clearly and
decide to turn around and walk back to the main shopping
street. The last thing I need is to end up in some fucked
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up crack estate on the outskirts of town. Rubbing my eyes,
I focus on the pavement in front of me and begin zigzagging
back through the streets. All of the buildings on
either side of the road are in darkness and, apart from the
occasional swoosh of a car going by on the road or a dog
barking far away in the distance, it’s eerily quiet.
I reach a crossroads and stop at the corner as I try to
retrace my steps. How difficult can this be? This is ridiculous.
I just walked down here a few moments ago.
Suddenly, I notice a guy in a brown bomber jacket walking
towards me up the street. I straighten my shoulders
and try to look as though I know where I’m going. He
reaches the crossroads and shouts over, but I don’t understand
what he’s saying. He crosses the road and walks up
to me. I stand my ground, annoyed with myself for not
paying more attention to Jackie Chang’s karate moves in
the movie ‘Rumble in the Bronx’, which I saw recently on
DVD. The unshaven guy looks at me suspiciously. He then
says something. I shake my head and shrug my shoulders.
‘Woman,’ he laughs.
I frown. ‘Woman?’
He nods. ‘You want woman?’
‘No, thank you,’ I reply in a slow, clear tone.
He laughs. ‘Jiggy-jiggy, da?’
I smile nervously. ‘Nyet.’
His face falls and his eyes are drawn to my jacket pocket.
I start to feel a little uncomfortable and take a step
back, but he steps forward – his eyes still firmly fixed on
my jacket pocket. Distracted by a passing car, I look away
from the guy for a second and before you can say ‘Jackie
Chang’, he reaches inside my pocket and grabs a couple of
notes I’d stuffed in there for safe keeping. I’m completely
shocked, and freeze as I watch him run off down the
street. How did he know I had money in that pocket?
That’s not important, my immediate concern should be to
get my money back, so I do … well, I try. Chasing after
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him, I shout really scary things like “I can use a gun, you
know!” and “The police are coming!” but he finds my
threatening words rather amusing and just laughs over his
shoulder instead of stopping and handing back my cash.
After a hundred metres, or so, the shock of what’s just
happened slowly begins to subside, and it suddenly
occurs to me that pursuing this thief might actually be
quite a bad idea. There can’t have been more than ten quid
in my pocket. I’m certainly not going to be knifed to death,
or shot in the head over such a small amount of money. I
skid to a halt and watch as the thief disappears out of sight.
Feeling a little foolish and annoyed with myself for getting
into this dangerous situation in the first place, I pick
up pace and eventually find my way back to the main
shopping street. It’s deserted. After walking thirty yards, I
suddenly see a guy who looks remarkably like Sergei, the
Chechen criminal from the club. He’s standing under a
shop awning with his head hanging down and his hands
in the pockets of his black leather jacket. At first I think
he’s starring down at his boots, but as I walk over to him I
see the poor guy is fast asleep. I don’t want to wake him
up so I creep by, but I accidentally kick an empty Coke can
across the ground. Sergei’s eyes spring open, and his head
slowly lifts up like a zombie rising from the dead. He
doesn’t move for a few seconds; he just stares at me intently
before cracking a smile.
‘Chris!’ he grins, his eyes struggling to focus on my face.
‘What you doing, Sergei? It’s raining. Were you asleep?’
He shakes his head. ‘Not asleep.’
‘You were asleep.’
‘Nyet. I wait for friend,’ he replies.
‘Azamat?’
‘Nyet, other friend.’
I offer him a cigarette. He pulls his collars up and takes
a lighter out of his pocket.
‘Where you go now?’ he asks, cupping his hands around
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the lighter.
‘To my hotel.’
‘You want vodka? We drink more vodka.’
‘No, I go to my hotel. I’m very tired.’
He points up the street. ‘We go drink.’
‘I go home,’ I reply. ‘I sleep.’
‘OK. You crazy, Chris!’
On that note, Sergei drops his head again, closes his
eyes and goes back to sleep.
* * *
Walking through the dark streets of Parnu in the early
hours, with an Estonian blonde in one hand and a vodka
and tonic in the other … I feel like a God. All I had managed
as a way of goodbye to Chris was a weak wave over
the crowd, but he knows the score. I’ve learnt over the
years that slipping away after the club closes is always a
wise thing to do, especially when there’s a girl involved.
Passing a newspaper stand, I buy Eva a coffee and with a
look of mischief in her eyes, she drags me down towards
the river. We find a bench close to the bridge and sit with
our arms around each other, watching the boats chug
slowly by in the dark. Deeply feminine, Eva looks at me
with her small soft features and long delicate eyelashes.
She doesn’t speak very good English, and as she tries to
explain something to me about herself, I interrupt her by
gently taking away her coffee and launching it into the
river. She looks surprised by my spontaneity, and grinning
wildly I take her in my arms and begin kissing her passionately.
Pausing for a moment she looks at me with wide
eyes, and greatly turned on we pull at each other’s clothes
and make love right there on the bench.
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It begins to grow light. We rearrange our clothes and sit on
the bench in comfortable silence, which is a relief considering
we’ve just had sex in a public place. Eva rests her
head on my shoulder and caresses my chest. I feel so
relaxed, a little cold, but relaxed.
I escort Eva along the river to the entrance of a high-rise
tower block. She doesn’t invite me inside, but I guess it’s
understandable particularly if she has a young child. She
scribbles down her mobile number on my hand in eyeliner.
What an amazing night …what an amazing girl. I look
down at her number on my hand and smile. We kiss
before breaking away, and smiling at each other one last
time, I float across the grass as she disappears out of sight.
Catching a taxi back to the hotel, I skip up the stairs and
sing a good morning to the tired looking woman sat
behind reception. Gliding down the corridor, I pause outside
our room and feel vaguely surprised to see the door
slightly ajar. It’s not like Chris to leave the door open. I
enter the dark room. I don’t want to turn the light on and
disturb him as he snores loudly beneath his sheets, so I
fumble my way over to my bed on the far side of the room.
Whipping off my T-shirt, I collapse onto the bed and lie in
the darkness. All of a sudden, the door swings open and I
sit up in surprise. A beam of light from the corridor blinds
my vision and, through half-closed eyes, I can just make
out a silhouetted figure in the doorway.
‘Chris?’
The room light flicks on and I’m surprised to see an
elderly woman in a nightgown stood in the doorway. Her
eyes widen, and she releases a bloodcurdling scream
when she sees me lying on her bed with my top off.
Scrambling off the bed, I pull my T-shirt over my head and
immediately try to calm her down, but she continues to
shriek insanely. She begins shouting at the lump in the
bed, and I turn and see the frightened face of a man with
a baldhead peering cautiously over the duvet. The woman
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continues to scream while the bald guy continues to cower
beneath the covers.
‘I thought he was my brother!’ I yell. ‘I thought this was
my room!’
The woman on reception suddenly appears at the door
and barks at me in Estonian. I quickly try to explain that
I’ve made a mistake. She doesn’t seem to understand. The
old lady in the nightgown clutches onto the receptionist’s
arm and begins to pant breathlessly. She seems to be on
the verge of hyperventilating, so the receptionist helps her
onto a chair in the corner of the room. I try to explain to
the receptionist what has happened, but she just scowls at
me as she tries to calm the old woman down.
‘Wrong room!’ I shout. ‘I got the wrong room!’
Chris suddenly pokes his head around the door. ‘What
the fuck are you doing?’
‘I got the wrong room! This isn’t our room!’
‘I know it’s not. Our room is next door, you idiot!’
‘Fuck! Chris, it wasn’t my fault! I thought this was our
room. All the doors look the same in this place. I thought
it was you in the bed.’
‘I’ve only just got back to the hotel myself, you prick.’
‘Help me!’
The old lady begins to scream again, but we eventually
manage to calm everyone down and explain exactly what
has happened. From the way the receptionist scowls at us,
you can tell she thinks we’re little more than two stupid
drunken tourists with no consideration for other people,
whilst the old couple glare at us with disgust. With bright
red faces, we edge our way out of the room. Nosy guests
in their jim-jams poke their heads out into the corridor as
we return shamefully to our room.
‘What the fuck!’ Chris laughs, falling onto his bed.
‘Oh my God,’ I cringe, biting my fingernails. ‘Did that
really just happen?’
‘I’m afraid so, hippie boy.’
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I pace up and down the room, sweating profusely.
‘Christ, I feel so bad.’
‘I can’t believe you got the wrong room! Your face was
hilarious.’
‘We need to get the hell out of here … yeah, that’s what
we should do … shit, I’m still pissed.’
‘Chill out! We’re all right for a few more hours.’
‘I thought it was our room. You were snoring. I thought
it was you beneath the covers. Fuck, this is bad, so veryvery
bad. I feel really guilty. One of them could’ve had a
frigging heart attack. Right, we have to leave, Chris. I’m
not staying around here … no way! They probably thought
I was robbing them. Oh, that poor woman’s face when she
saw me.’
‘Come on, Si, people must make the same mistake all of
the time.’
‘Do you reckon?’
‘Actually … probably not.’
‘Bollocks! We need to leave immediately.’
‘Si, relax. It wasn’t your fault. Come on, it must be after
seven, let’s grab some breakfast. I think we both need it.’
Racing frantically around the room, we throw everything
into our rucksacks and make our way cautiously
towards reception. We make our final apologies and head
sheepishly for the exit.
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