REVOLUTION DAY

The assignment we were given on an alternative day at the third level of Narbokov’s health-building courses to impersonate characters we found most annoying.

The previous time I had played King and had to proceed from something the opposite. However, the polar image of the King was actually rebellious. It was the case of the Pauper, not the Prince. In other words, a revolutionary.

In order to find a protesting theme common to the masses, I transferred my demands from the political plane (its demands were too diversified) to the economic one. For example, who is there to love high taxes? Nobody, without exception.

This theme is sufficiently topical in Ukraine. In short, I took two cardboard squares and wrote on one: “Please donate ten kopiykas to raise funds to lower tax rates.” After all, what is the consequence of excessive taxes? Poverty, of course. Hence the inscription on the other cardboard square: “Poor tax: five kopiykas.”

After that I started composing my spiel: “Sorry, I am so young, yet I am addressing you, begging for help...” The traditional opening formula, which I had heard so often while using public transport and which I found very annoying.

After that, however, I was going to say, “The sad fact remains that the taxes spare no one, young, old, humans, and animals.”

In fact, when reciting it in a subway car, I nearly burst out laughing when it came to the animals, but held myself in check, seeing the passengers’ serious faces.

And then I said, “The new progressive tax amounts to 90%. Is this progress?”

Honestly, I had only a vague idea about the progressive tax, nor have I enlightened myself on the subject since then, but the statement sounded quite impressive.

To lend the whole thing a dramatic touch, I had a souvenir dustbin with me, to deposit there the money donated. It was a work of art, metal chasing, a miniature old-time ashcan the size of a tall glass.

“Place your money in the trash, and it won’t be wasted,” I promised those present.

The second demand was an aesthetic one. Using a black felt pen, I scribbled, “Raising funds for the dismantling of the Mother the Protectress statue on Independence Square” and in smaller letters underneath, “because it disfigures the city visage.”

After that I selected my attire: mother’s 25-year-old American synthetic fur coat. No buttons and very symbolic: decrepit US democracy expanding modern Ukrainian freedom.

I girded myself with a red dressing gown belt and selected a cap with earflaps matching the belt. I put it on backwards, so everybody walking behind could read the white legend Solomon. Oriental wisdom inside out.

After that I put on a pair of worn training suit trousers and size 12 ski shoes (I had stumbled on them in our miniature pantry), but not before donning three pairs of socks lest I fall out of them walking.

Before going out, I paused in front of the mirror to examine the result of my creative endeavors. On the radio the local version of the ABBA was blasting away with Super Stupor. Very appropriate, I thought.

Clad in that amazing attire, I walked out on the street. I was in a hurry, because I didn’t want to run into my mother, for she would surely dampen my combat spirit, as she had done the previous year.

There was no sense reporting to the office, as they had grown acclimatized to my extravaganzas since I had last appeared as King, so I headed for the Metro station. Action time!

Where the previous time my royal apparel had made me somewhat tense, this time I was not too worried about my exotic looks. What did worry me was how I would start raising funds.

Once inside the subway car, I forced myself into a revolutionary mood and began my sorry-I-am-so-young spiel in what I thought was clear enough voice.

My throat felt a little dry, and I sounded a bit hoarse, but that seemed to have added a touch of credibility. I also thought the closing statement very effective: “Tax inspectors will please refrain from donating any money.”

The passengers in the Metro sat very quiet, their backs pressed to the back of the seat. But they were very attentive; how could they have acted otherwise with a fellow standing in front of them and yelling at the top of his voice? However, realizing that general statements were not enough, I proceeded to approach individual passengers.

I walked up to a woman wearing a black coat. “Aren’t you outraged by such outrageous tax rates?” I asked.

Her reply was a clich О classically peculiar to our mentality, “I am, what can we do?”

“Donate ten kopiykas,” I suggested. Of course, she declined.

A young well-nourished man with a girl in the same weight category, when asked if he was concerned by such excessive taxation? grinned and said, “We aren’t paying at all.”

I agreed, “That’s a stand as good as any.” And a typical one, I added to myself.

I also noticed that I could not get control of the audience enough to reach the desired final effect. I had to make an extra effort (without knowing what) whereupon I could say the audience was mine and I could do with it whatever I wished. Well, I would surely try.

After announcing fund-raising to lower tax rates in another car, I saw an intellectual-looking passenger put down his newspaper. He said it was a clever thing to do, in an appreciative tone of voice, then produced a 10-kopiyka coin and passed it on to me.

When I got off at the Khreshchatyk station, a young fellow with a broad smile on a broad face caught up with me and gave me eleven kopiykas, saying, “Fight on, man!” This made me feel responsible. The young man must have been too bashful to finance a revolutionary in public. Doing it tete-а-tete was an altogether different matter.

My route took me up the street, to Independence Square. En route, I switched the economic demands for the cultural-aesthetic ones. Now I was campaigning for the dismantling of the ugly mother statue.

On the moving stairway, I tried to strike up a conversation with an office-type girl sporting a pair of delicately framed glasses. I asked her if she liked the statue. She said she did not. Then donate ten kopiykas, I told her. She surprised me, saying she was willing to contribute 75. Sure, why not, I agreed with enthusiasm. Who would say no to an extra bit of sponsorship?

The girl was amazingly self-possessed and action-oriented. You must have an excellent character, I suggested. She said she didn’t, at least her friends didn’t think so. But you must be an action-oriented individual, I persisted. She smiled and agreed.

In fact, our assignment had an additional proviso, reading that each of us had to embrace eight fellow passengers, total strangers. Here is your chance, I told myself.

“May I give you a hug as a sign of gratitude?” I asked her cordially. She laughed and we embraced each other, like brother and sister, you know — a very touching moment. I was ready to cry, although a voice was nagging inside: Would you have behaved like that in her place?

The first I tried my destroy-the-monstrosity demands on were portraitists in the underpass.

“You ought to be the first to donate money for the demolition of that monster. You are artists, aren’t you? You must have an advanced aesthetic sense. Are you trying to tell me that you can live with that mother?” I pressed on.

“Yeah, we can live with that ugly mother. Besides, today we’re broke,” an artist’s heavily made-up girlfriend told me in an indifferent tone of voice, though not without a touch of sarcasm. Well, if you’re out of cash today, that monster will still be there tomorrow, I told her.

When I got out of the underpass it had started drizzling, and it felt terrible: the kind of grim and damp atmosphere loved by horror film producers, and I saw in front of me that huge column topped by an ugly statue.

I stood by it with my card for all to see, calling out to passersby. Many just shrugged and walked past, some said they were visiting the city and that they liked everything they saw. Irked, I came up with a fresh argument, saying, “If you want to look in harmony with this monstrosity, you have to dress like me.”

It was then I received a shattering blow from a girl with an absent-minded expression on her face. She looked at my buttonless fur coat and seriously said, “You look cool.” For some time I was at a loss for a word and then blurted out that I had a belt to match the color of my cap. “That’s stylish,” she nodded.

Well, what do you know? My apparel was in vogue! Now I knew the latest fashion trend.

Three girls (from Troyeshchyna, it transpired) paused in front of the mother statue. Troyeshchyna apparently cultivates a stronger aesthetic spirit, compared to other Kyiv districts. The girls said they did not like Independence Square as a whole, so I added thirty kopiykas to my ashcan fund.

Half the passersby, however, did not care either way. A hefty Asiatic individual sporting a thin leather raincoat jumped as I addressed him with my appeal and grimly told me to cut it out.

Some said they had built it, so let it stand. But if they topple it, let it lie, I told a bald empty-eyed gentleman. Sure, let it damn well lie, he agreed, just as indifferently: maybe you’re right, it would be less conspicuous lying down. I had to agree.

Most people simply did not care one way or the other. And not only civilians. There I stood in the heart of the capital, demanding that a statue be torn down, aware of four militia patrolmen hanging around, looking my way, but never walking up to see my ID. That is our advantage and a big problem, I told myself. If I had tried this in Moscow, I would have been stopped and searched by the militia at least twice. Here they were just glancing my way. No one grabbing me and escorting with regulations firearms at the ready. Well, maybe that was for the best.

When I stumbled out of the Arsenalna station I remembered buying a booklet from a street vendor some time ago and paying more than it cost. Now I would get even with those evil speculators!

There were two of them. One sporting a leather jacket, mustache, beard, and a pair of cunning eyes, the other just a windbreaker.

I gave them my high tax spiel. The leather-clad one put his hands on my shoulders and turned me to face the milling crowd, “You talk to, them, they’ll pay.”

“Smart, aren’t you,” I told him, my voice as chilling as my stare. I can do that, you know. The leather jacket was obviously impressed.

The windbreaker suddenly became animated. Asking where to deposit the money, he dutifully put some change in my ashcan, slipped his arm through mine and gently guided me along the avenue, talking fast:

“Hey, man, I like your type. You guys are cool. I was a in one of those informal groups back in 1968. Then they kicked me out of the Polytechnic Institute. KGB men kept watching us, of course, but, man, it was cool! I was in the third year when I joined an archaeological expedition to get away from persecution.”

“And your family life didn’t work out, of course,” I offered.

“No time for that. What’s your line?”

“I’m a writer and journalist.”

“Let’s get together one of these days. I live a short walk from the Arsenalna station, except don’t call me, the line is bugged by the KGB. And if you want to drop in, let me know in advance. I live with my mother, she’s old, and she might open the door.

“You think I always walk around dressed like that?” I decided to be frank with a veteran nonconformist.

“That’s your business.” He was democratic to the core. “I mean if it’s OK by you, it’s OK by me, but mom could get scared.”

“Relax, I’ve got a coat with buttons at home for just such an occasion.”

On my way to the courses I scared the wits out of a couple of bourgeois types getting out of their limos. They turned out to be very superstitious, seeing in me an omen of coming business troubles.

At the courses, I was most impressed by a woman named Nona, owner of two businesses and generally looking like a deputy principal for studies, with a head of curly graying hair, clad in a business suit, everything spick-and-span, and a living overstatement for all I knew.

But not when I walked in. In fact, I did not recognize her, not even when she sat next to me, as she always did — not until she spoke.

In a way she looked like Uma Thurman in Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction: short hair, perforated sunglasses, a waist-short leather jacket, and a miniskirt. The final touch was a toy dog on a leash hanging from her sagging purse. Nona said her mother begged her to leave the dog, just the dog at home. But no, the image had to be complete.

I had to admit to myself that Nona had turned into a sex bomb: no trace of the pristine deputy principal left.

“Mind if I walk up the stage ahead of you?” she whispered. “Otherwise you’ll make me fade.”

“Come on, two stars can always shine together,” I assured her.

Late that night, the revolutionary star had a hard time flagging down fixed-route taxis. Each would start slowing down, ready to pull over, but once the headlights caught me full the driver would floor the gas pedal. They did this three times!

Then I trudged to the taxi terminal and crawled into one with a dozing cabbie. I sat next to a nice young lady and struck up a conversation, showing off my chased dustbin. Its shape was a perfect match for my image, but in a formal sort of way. The young lady politely nodded, listening to my discourse, but there was an expression in her eyes that somehow contradicted that of her face. I could not quite figure it out.

By way of inference, my revolutionary odyssey was proof of the saying, The kind of skin you put on, the kind of crowd you will attract. Like that nonconformist archaeologist.

When those around you see the skin you are wearing and identify you with it, it gives you a kind of advantage. The main thing is to know how to use it, the way I did when learning to get my audience under control. The way Onassis did when Aristotle Onassis found a way into an exclusive club, renting a dinner jacket (an example on the reverse side). Therefore, if you want to penetrate a hostile environment, you have to use camouflage.

Also, you must be active, something we Ukrainians obviously lack, acting on the impotence principle.

I wish I were like that girl donating 75 kopiykas. Calm within and active outside. With me it is often the other way around.

The ashcan turned out to contain 149 kopiykas, a hard-earned sum.