Voroshilovgrad (17 page)

The game got off to a rocky start. The gas guys were lethargic, possibly due to the meat they'd been eating, so they weren't moving up the field. On the other hand, the Balalaeshnikov brothers were all jittery for some reason—they'd wind up and completely miss the ball. Also, they were constantly getting in each other's way and arguing with the referee. Five minutes in, Ravzan whiffed again, and got hit upside the head by Shamil. The referee blew the whistle, but couldn't think of anything better to do than giving the opposing team a free kick. He even wanted to card Shamil for unsportsmanlike conduct, but Ravzan himself stood up for him, saying that it was a family affair. He advised the referee to keep his distance. One of the gas guys took the free kick, the ball slid along
through the thick grass and slipped past someone into our goal, which by the way was probably a total fluke. The gas guys started celebrating—the dogs roared in reply to their triumphant cries and their sheep bleated too. This elation was short-lived, however—on the very next possession, Injured ran halfway down the field and smashed the ball past the boss, who had timed his jump pretty poorly. He tumbled awkwardly back into his goal and got tangled up in the net like a big catfish. It took both teams to help extricate him. Gradually we started up again. The gas guys doggedly refused to attack—our guys opted for positional play, and as soon as one of our opponents got the ball, we'd knock him off his feet and run over to the referee to contest the call. Our referee didn't exactly have the best eyes—he couldn't see the ball at all in the twilight, so he'd just take our word for it. Shortly afterward, Injured scored again. It was rather unexpected—it was so dark by now that one of the gas guys mistook Injured for one of his teammates and so lost control of the ball; scoring from twenty meters out was a matter of pride for Injured. We took the lead. At this point the gas guys finally got into the game and went on the offensive, leaving their goalie alone with some hungry sheep whimpering by the goal. Injured scored his third goal in a blistering counterattack. He just came running all the way back to our goal, stole the ball from the gas guys, dribbled it down the whole field, burned past the goalie, and careened straight into the pack of sheep, carried by his momentum. Right after that, the Balalaeshnikovs knocked over three guys inside the penalty area—Ravzan took down one guy, while Shamil handled the other two. The referee had the gas guys take a penalty kick. They scored. Injured was pissed, but he didn't
want to sub out the Balalaeshnikovs. Basically, it looked like we were all just getting in his way. He faked out the boss and scored two more times before the end of the half; however, Semyon let two goals whiz by him. If there were a commentator, he would have remarked that the fans must be loving this high-scoring game. The accountant was the only one in the audience, of course, but to be fair, he was clearly soaking it up. During halftime, the home team drove their eighteen-wheelers closer, started up their engines, and flooded the field with their headlights. The field looked like a stage, bright and ready for a show, and the German shepherds' eyes and the accountant's glasses were shining through the darkness. Injured gathered us around, crouched down, and put his briefcase down in front of him. He took out a bottle of grain alcohol, and sent it around the circle. Everyone was looking at our captain with deep reverence.

“Guys, remember, clean touches,” Injured said, and then again: “Clean touches.”

We all took a swig and nodded. The Balalaeshnikovs were standing off to the side arguing about something, but I couldn't hear what they were saying.

The same dynamic continued into the second half. Siryozha the Rapist, who subbed in for Python, tried calming the Balalaeshnikovs down—he yelled at them, told them to push up the field, told them to pay closer attention, started playing their positions, and generally just got in
their
way. Trying to clear the ball, he wound up slamming it into our own goal. He asked to be subbed out after that. Karpo Disc Grinder took his place, but his contribution wasn't especially meaningful either. The game drew to its
logical conclusion—the gas guys had dropped back; apparently, they were quite satisfied with a tie. Our team had run out of steam and couldn't get a decisive advantage. Injured was trying his best to crack the gas guys' tough defense, but you can't stop a column of tanks with a bayonet, and one player can't break past eleven angry gas guys six times in a row, even if that player is Injured.

The game should have already ended, but the referee, squinting and straining his weak eyes, just couldn't make out how much time had passed, so we played at least five minutes extra. Everyone had already started peering over at the bus parked off to the side, black and nearly invisible in the night, trying to figure out whether we'd be able to escape in one piece. It seemed as though even Injured had resigned himself to a tie. During the last possession, Semyon punted the ball into the opposing team's half—Andryukha Michael Jackson trapped it, burst past two gas guys, and ran down the field. He was almost one-on-one with the goalie, but at the last second, one of the gas guys kicked the ball out of bounds—we were set to take a corner kick. Both teams bunched up by the boss's goal. Even Semyon ran all the way up the field, sliding off his goalie gloves. Injured went over to take the corner. He chipped it up with his weak left foot, and the ball, following some implausible trajectory, curved into the gas guys' penalty box. It bounced off of one of them and his teammate dropped it back to the boss. The boss kicked the ball with desperation, and it whizzed up like an artillery shell, bouncing off my head and into the goal. I didn't even see how it all happened because I had my back to the goal. We had won the game. The exhausted gas guys collapsed on the ground; the boss wiped off some sweat and
tears trickling down his cheeks; our guys hoisted me up on their shoulders and ran across the whole field to our bench. The referee, fearing the gas guys' wrath, led the way. Injured brought up the rear, limping along with a satisfied grin. The German shepherds came running along after him, howling morosely into the dark skies that not even the eighteen-wheelers' headlights could pierce.

Joy filled our hearts, joy and a feeling that justice had prevailed—everything played out the way it was supposed to. Who could have doubted that we'd come out on top? This journey could only have ended in triumph, so nobody was particularly surprised. I shook my friends' hands, relishing this adventure, which had ended so well, and genuinely surprised that so many years had passed and yet everything seemed to be returning to how it was—everything was behaving according to the laws of motion again. This thought calmed me and wound me up at the same time: it was this kind of joy, precisely the joy of recognition and the joy of returning that I'd been missing all these years . . . since our last match, really. Immersed in those thoughts, I spotted the gas guys out of the corner of my eye, moving toward us, slowly but surely. They had already started to recover from their defeat. It looked like they weren't planning on letting us go so easily. I exchanged glances with one of my teammates, and he too noticed their approach. Our triumphant cheering cut off all at once. Our guys started walking toward the gas guys. The teams faced off. Of course, that's how it was always going to go down. Even the accountant was coming at us, though he didn't have his glasses on. Evidently he didn't want them to get broken, so he had to grope blindly across the field. The gas guys stopped, breathing
heavily. Our guys halted too. Their headlights were directed right at us, blinding us and making all our shapes seem transparent, barely visible, as though we were ghosts standing in the middle of the field, trying to settle things with other ghosts. Gold teeth and tattooed crosses flashed periodically in the electric glare. The boss took a step forward.

“Injured, that last goal doesn't count.”

“Why the fuck not?” Injured asked cogently.

“Time had already run out,” the accountant explained.

“You're a doofus,” Andryukha Michael Jackson said, “I'm gonna feed you to your sheep.”

“Quit waving your dick around,” pronounced the boss solemnly. “Time was already up.”

“Time was up?” Injured asked.

“Time was up,” the gas guys repeated obstinately.

“So what,” Injured replied, pulling a pair of brass knuckles out of nowhere.

The rest of our guys were also taking out brass knuckles, nunchucks, and baseball bats. The gas guys also whipped out some boards, lead-lined army belts, and bricks. Something like overtime was about to get underway, but then two of the Balalaeshnikov brothers, Ravzan and Shamil, stepped forward:

“What the fuck?!” yelled Ravzan, though it was more of an answer than a question. “Time was up, you say? But it was only in the first half that we scored after time was up!”

“No we didn't, not in the first half,” Shamil interrupted to correct him.

“What do you mean we didn't?” Ravzan asked incredulously.
“We did. It was way past time.”

“No fuckin' way.” Shamil wasn't backing down.

“Bro,” Ravzan said, getting anxious, “you're lying out of your fuckin' ass. You weren't even there during the first half. I saw it with my own eyes, it was way past time.”

“Nope,” Shamil persisted.

“Bro, be quiet, all right?”

“We didn't score after time,” Shamil said.

“What are you lying out of your ass for?” Ravzan asked again.

Neither team dared get involved.

“So what?” Shamil asked, braced for whatever would follow.

“What? What?” Ravzan's blood was boiling over.

“I'll show you what!” Shamil's blood was doing likewise.

“I don't fuckin' think so,” Ravzan replied, and socked Shamil in the jaw.

Shamil went down, but he sprung to his feet quickly, grabbed a baseball bat out of someone's hands, and chucked it at his brother. Ravzan ducked; the bat whirled by him, right past his ear. He cried out and charged at his rival. He socked his brother a second time and then started pummeling him, but Shamil soon managed to escape, climb on top, and now he was the one pummeling Ravzan. Then Barukh flew toward them unexpectedly and kicked them away from each other; he grabbed them by their shirts, slammed their heads together, knocked both of them down, and then started pummeling both of them at once. Shamil and Ravzan, not expecting anything like this from their brother, lay there and took it for a moment or two, but then, sure enough, the fight came back into them and they grabbed Barukh by the legs and toppled him. They
straddled him and they both started pummeling
him
. This didn't last long, though—Barukh slithered out from under their heavy bodies, got them both in a headlock, and went back to flattening them into pancakes. About five minutes later, utterly exhausted, they were all rolling around in the grass, panting and spitting up blood. The gas guys were watching this whole scene, stupefied. They stood there in silence, too scared to move a muscle. Eventually, the boss called out warily:

“Hey Injured!” His voice was expressionless, petrified. “What the fuck is with you guys? Just beat it already.”

“And what about the last goal?” Injured asked, just in case.

“It counts,” the boss assured him, “it counts.”

We pulled out onto the highway in the darkness. The moon had rolled out to meet us, and its yellow light poured into the bus, falling onto my friends' faces—most of them were already asleep. Their eyes drooped in the dim light; their cheekbones had become more defined and their heads bobbed in unconsciousness. The driver stopped at the gas station. I waved, but pretty much no one was awake by this point, so there wasn't anybody to say good-bye to. Injured was the only one still awake—he came up to me and shook my hand without saying a word. I hopped out of the bus. The doors closed and it moved out, disappearing slowly behind the trees.

6

Ernst called before I even had the chance to think over our recent conversation. He called to see when I planned on coming by. I tried rescheduling, saying I was busy, I had an important meeting today, I was waiting for a special customer, I was feeling under the weather; I suggested we meet another time. Ernst listened to my spiel and countered with the following remark:

“Herman, sometimes people don't know what they're passing up, so it's best not to pass anything up. You see what I'm getting at?”

“Yeah.”

“So when should I expect you?”

“I'll shoot for two o'clock,” I conceded.

“Let's make it one thirty,” Ernst replied and hung up.

I went over to the garage to tell Injured. He heard me out and got angry, like usual. He said that instead of giving him a hand, just once, I was always dicking around and hanging out with shady motherfuckers. He told me he wouldn't take me anywhere and that I needed to get my shit together.

“Herman,” he shouted, “do you really wanna get mixed up in this tank scheme? What the fuck for? What would you even do with a tank if you found one?”