RuKsaK

Tom came to the party. A standard piss-up on a high-numbered floor of a model Socialist high-rise in St.Petersburg. It was mid-January and dog-dick-wilting cold. Tom’s arrival was unusual because he never arrived to parties.
‘Jesus! What you doing here?’
‘What does that mean? You no pleased to see me like?’
‘Over the fucking moon. You just never turn up even though you say you will.’

Tom leant enthusiastically when he chatted or listened. Always with a wry sense of humour, but bawdy and loud in an admirable way. He’d speak and you’d laugh and nod at others in unity. His hair was big enough to stop a hurtling bus and slashed upwards in a manner honouring the book he wrote. (click here for that).

It was good to see him.

I remember a bottle of beer was put on the floor and exploded by itself. I remember lots of jokes and booze. I ended up at the kitchen table, sitting with the food aftermath between me and Tom:
‘What me and you going to do with ourselves RuKsaK?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I’m getting married in two weeks. You in four right?’
‘That’s right. Your missus is called Natasha, isn’t she?’
‘Aye, that’s right. Same as yours like. That’s a wee bit fucking uncanny, ey? How old are you RuKsaK?’
’31 man. You the same?’
‘Aye and me birthday’s early June.’
‘Shit that is weird. I’m just two weeks older than you.’
‘That’s fucking nuts mon. So, what we going to do with our lives? Marrying these Russian lasses both called Natasha?’

I didn’t answer and he didn’t. We just had more beer as it seemed like a great answer to our big question.

I intensely took pleasure in that coincidence-soaked conversation. It was the first time me and Tom really recognised each other. It was a talk full of agreeing gestures that we’d spend more time together, have laughs, more beered solutions.
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We all left the party. Tom needed help with his bootlaces. Slurred goodbyes with insulting jokes probably.

This is how it turned out to me:
Tom and Natasha were near their home.
It was around minus fifteen degrees, dark, icy.
Tom fell into the open manhole.
He split his neck and back dropping in.
That fast, concrete violence killed him.
The authorities came eventually and removed his body out onto the dark frost. Natasha was with him all the time.

I never spoke to his Natasha afterwards. I didn’t go to his funeral in Scotland. I got married on the twentieth February two weeks after Tom and Natasha would have done. We had a great day. Everyone who’d been at the party was there except Tom’s Natasha. We didn’t know how to invite her.

I didn’t know Tom that well, but think about him often. I feel I had a close shave and don’t understand why my fucking massive ego® didn’t make me the mark. I have problems with faith now. I feel guilt turning Tom into a story, albeit a true one, a maudlin pub one spilled onto a blog. Just like all my dribbles.

I apologise.

Monday, December 27, 2004

Tom