[Years ago I swore if I ever became editor of a periodical I would never allow words from or titles of pop songs to become heds. It’s lazy, first of all, and usually glib. But here I am being lazy and glib.]
I’ve been selling off what books I have in order to eat.
Normally, I’d pack up what I’ve got in a backpack and head off to Shakespeare and Sons, one of two English-language bookstores in Prague that take used books. The other one being The Globe. The Globe no longer buys books, but rather takes them in trade. Shakespeare used to give pretty good prices, depending on how surly and suspicious the Czech person was who did the buying. Back in my homeless days, station boys would steal Lonely Planet Guides and photography/art books from one of the big bookstores on the square and I would fence them at Shakespeare. Then we’d eat, or get drunk. At first, we got great prices. LP books cost a fortune here - almost 50 bucks for the big ones - but the more I went the less the haul. I guess they caught on. Yeah, they caught on, I’m sure of it. But, they’re Czechs so they took the merch anyway. Now, I’m lucky to get 20 crowns per book, no matter how valuable they were new.
On Saturday I decided to put a For Sale ad up on expats.cz. I don’t like dealing with young expats, and they are the ones who usually buy stuff. Or think they maybe, probably want to buy stuff, but they’re not really sure. Inevitably, they are flaky, want to chit-chat on the phone, try to talk me down from what I consider reasonable prices and send me private messages when I specify NO PMs! SMS or CALL ONLY. You see, young expats neither listen nor read very carefully, and some of them seem to be looking for friends in the classifieds among the scuffed IKEA furniture, concert tickets and beat-up PCs.
My first nibble turned out to be a flake. We arranged to meet at Museum at 18:30, at The Horse statue on vaclavske namesti. I wanted to meet at 2 - my tummy rumbled, “Earlier, earlier!” - but he was at work when he called and insisted it wasn’t possible. I was there ten minutes ahead of time and waited until almost 19:00. A no-show. Lovely. He had called me from a landline so I couldn’t text him to demand to know where the fuck he was.
It wouldn’t have been such a big deal if I hadn’t already spent 26 crowns to get into the center. Luckily, I’d had enough credit to buy a ticket via SMS - yet another cool thing about Prague public transit - but still a net loss in time and energy. But, what could I have done? I hadn’t eaten in over 36 hours.
[For those that don’t know my situation: Normally, I’m given 20,000 crowns a month to live on. For quite awhile now, this money has been offered as a combination of charity, artist/blogger sponsorship and a business arrangement. At this point, after all this time, the weight definitely falls on the charity aspect. So how can I complain?
My rent is 15,000 inclusive, giving me 5000 to eat and have fun, which is really not enough, even if I took out the fun, which I can’t or won’t. However, I usually have clients, blog readers and friends visiting Prague (Craig rocks!), and until this month, what extra money I got from those sources has been sufficient to get by. I still only go out with Pavel once or twice a month and never have enough to visit the boy-bars, unless I’m treated to a night out.
This month I was handed 15,900 on the third, and was told that the balance would be given “tomorrow.” And then “tomorrow” again. And then “next Monday.” Tomorrow never came and Monday came and went.
900 crowns later, spent on food and no fun, and here I am:
The lightbulbs in the kitchen have burned out and I’m cooking by the light from the bathroom. I’m on my last roll of toilet paper. I’m not washing my hands after I piss because the orange sherbet-colored bar of cheap Tesco soap has been rubbed down to a tiny sliver. I’m using watered-down shower gel, left over from Bryan’s occupancy, to wash dishes. I’ve eaten the last little packet of rice with the last few drops of Light Soy Sauce and I’ve sucked down really crappy Czech pasta sauce with a spoon. Yeah, without the pasta, just the sauce. I wouldn’t advise it unless you have really, really good pasta sauce.
Honestly, I had much less stress when I was homeless.]
My second attempt to sell a book - Richard Dawkins’ The Ancestor’s Tale, which science I’ve been absorbing slowly, sitting on the toilet, in order to stretch out my reading material as far as it will go - went much better. The guy was a little late but at least he showed up. I’d learned my lesson though. Instead of taking public transit, I walked. Let me tell you, it was considerably more convenient to live in the center. Walking to The Horse from my old flat in Zizkov would have taken about 12 minutes. Now, from Nusle, it’s around 35. On an empty stomach, and in withdrawal from nicotine and caffeine, I walked it in more like 45. I was dizzy and dehydrated by the time I got there. Making the transaction, I immediately ducked into the nearby Albert and bought some ground meat. Not beef, because it’s too expensive, but not all pork either. Albert sells packages of mixed maso - 75% pork and 25% beef - and once I doctor it up with spices, it tastes pretty good. I also bought 4 rolls, 4 bottles of the cheapest beer, to take the edge of my anxiety, a bag of inexpensive pasta and some more crappy tomato sauce. Bye-bye 100 crowns. I thought I did pretty good, though, figuring I could eat on that for the next couple of days.
However, I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until I smelled the hamburger frying. I ended up eating half the ground meat that night - my body clearly called out for it - and ate two more smallish burgers the next day for “breakfast.” As you can guess, I’m a bit constipated now, but I felt oh-so sated when I finally went to sleep. A good feeling.
Today I managed to sell Fiasco: The American Misadventure in Iraq, given to me by Craig, which I’ve read twice, to a non-flaky, graduated-from-expat-to-native businessman - he owns the largest used car dealership in Europe - who not only didn’t care that the cover was creased, but invited me to McDonald’s for a quick bite. (Those new Farmer’s Fries aren’t bad.) I must have looked hungry or poor.
But then, maybe I didn’t do the right thing. You decide. I didn’t buy food, but I did buy sustenance. I haven’t had a cigarette in days so I bought menthols, 50 crowns. And I bought coffee, 23 crowns, sugar, 20 crowns, and two 1.5 litre bottles of sparkling mineral water. The tap water in my flat makes me nauseous. I have 15 crowns left over to buy some more pasta when I run out, probably tomorrow. I have an excuse. Both nicotine and caffeine are appetite suppressors, and both of them help me to blog. I also walked home, tiring myself out. As long as I have a bed to sleep in, sleeping 12 hours a day seems like a good way not to think about the fact that the cupboard, and the medicine cabinet - ran out of toothpaste a couple minutes ago - and the refrigerator, are all bare.
I’ll continue moving my ad up to the top position on expats.cz and hopefully be able to move a few more books. Also, Colin of Prague Pleasures, is having a birthday party on Saturday at Villa Mansland. He always has a big spread, and perhaps I can doggy-bag. Pavel has been keeping in touch with me via e-mail and SMSes, and he gets paid tomorrow.
“I give you small money, yes?” he said.
I’ll be quite proud of him if he does but can’t really hold it against him if he doesn’t. He’s got a baby and a mother to feed, after all, and who the fuck am I really, to him?
Funny how desperation drives me to write. Oh really, desperation isn’t the word. I’ve just been a little hungry, that’s all. The most I’ve gone without food in the past has been 6 days, and I ended up breaking that fast by dining and dashing at Rocky O’Reilly’s. Very good meal, that was, and I worked it off by running through the streets of Prague, ahead of the bar’s bouncers. Pretty sure I couldn’t run that fast now.
Most of the stress that caused my mood to put a damper on Craig’s recent visit has dissipated, replaced by a resignation that I might very well be homeless in the near future. My friend’s sponsorship of me is due to run out, or is anyway up again for negotiations, on July 1. As perverse as it sounds, life without a flat, or boys, to take care of was considerably less stressful than it is now, wondering daily if my rent will get paid, or if I’ll eat in the morning. Living in the now when one is homeless is the only way to survive.
Even after two years, I still haven’t found a way to support myself. I won’t hedge. Blogging, and some of the adjunct activities like making amateur porn, are the only things I’ve ever been very good at. The problem is, if I end up back on the streets, the prospects of pimping for a little pocket change… well, it looks dim. There’s no real scene at the station anymore, although my friend Miro, whom I chatted with today, is doing pretty well. But he speaks Czech, and because he has glasses now, he doesn’t need me to point out the good-looking fresh meat. As I’ve said, most of what’s left are OKs. Old Kurvas, or old hustlers. Today, hanging around outside one of the station’s entrances, I saw two former Pinocchio boys trying to find biznis. Back when they were young twinks, they ruled the roost. Now they just look tired, and in some ways, particularly in their eyes, they look older than me.
Miro told me that he’d found a pub in the center that caters mostly to the homeless. Beggars, he said, that make more money in one day than a normal Czech person does in two weeks. Miro drinks for free there, beer after beer bought by folks who have nothing else. I told Miro he had to introduce me. So at least maybe I can find a new community, a place to get drunk. Gone are the days when the station boys would fill up the back room at Rudolfa. I could become the only homeless person in Prague with a MacBook, a digital camera, neither of which I’m willing to sell, and a blog. New stories to tell, for sure.
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Craig,
homelessness,
Miro,
money,
station life
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