3.17.2006

CHAPTER 8 - Expats Galore

"I’M telling you mate. You need a mobile."
"No way. That’s bullshit. I don’t need that crap."
"Like it or not, you’ll have to live up to the fact that we’re living in the twenty-first century one day or another. Mobiles are a part of life."
"No way. I refuse to subscribe to this phone-obsessed bullshit that’s taken control of society."
"Suit yourself..." Dan remained silent as he prepared his dinner over the communal stove. I was sitting at the table in the adjacent kitchen, right next to the doorway, rolling a cigarette.
I felt, as always, that I had to justify myself. "Listen man. This entire mobile phone fixation has taken the whole world by storm and, frankly, I don’t fuckin’ like it. I mean, status symbol my ass. You know what I saw when I was in Greece this summer? Well, actually, I started seeing it a few years ago, but this year I really noticed it. Everyone, Dan, and I do mean EVERYONE, had a fuckin’ mobile. I was up in the mountains taking a bus through, looked out the window, and what did I see? An old goat herder talking on a mobile. Later on, when we stopped just outside a tiny village near a natural spring, what did I see? An old lady dressed in black, a widow, talking on her mobile. I even saw a fisherman one time, fishing on this small boat in the middle of the sea doing what? Talking on a mobile! Un-fuckin-believable! I mean, everywhere I look there’s someone talking on a mobile... this city, any city, and even the countryside. Hell, even in the remotest backwater hick village!"
"So?"
"So? So?! First of all, once everyone starts owning a so-called status symbol, then it stops becoming a status symbol. Hell, in my opinion, it starts becoming a necessity. I mean, just look at the car, the television, and even the computer now. People swear by this stuff and say they can’t live without it but that, my friend, is a huge pile of horseshit. All this stuff that we ‘need’ is nothing but luxury. Hell, even if we can consider it luxury. A lot of this shit just makes people even more complacent, more irritated, or, frankly, just plain fucking stupider. And the mobile, now, has fallen into the same category. I say ‘No thank you.’ I don’t need one. I don’t want one. When I leave my home, I don’t want anyone calling me, I’m out and that’s final. Call back later if it’s so damn important."
Dan was putting his meal onto a plate as I finished. He put the frying pan into the sink, turned on the water, and then turned to me, "Excuse me, Paul. How long ago did you say that girl from the club had asked you for your number?"
"I guess about two weeks ago now."
"I see. And you haven’t heard from her yet, have you?"
"Well, no. But she might have called when..."
"Yeah, yeah," he interrupted. "Might have. If you had a mobile, you would have known for sure. At the very least, you would have got a text message."
"I don’t give a shit, it’s the principle of the matter. I’m not gonna do something just because it’ll make life easier. Following the masses and all that."
Dan was growing hungry and his food was slowly getting cold so we suspended our conversation and made our way to the TV room. To our surprise, Kim was already sitting there, alone, and watching some recently dubbed blockbuster on Czech HBO. We all exchanged hellos and Dan set in on his meal.
"Anything good on?"
"No, just some new film that’s got Sylvester Stallone speaking Czech. Amazing. I’m just starting to speak the language but all of Hollywood’s already mastered it. Ha!"
Dan finished chewing what food he had left in his mouth, "Say Kim. Do you own a mobile?"
"Of course."
"Why?"
"Well, isn’t it obvious? How else can people get in contact with me? I can call students or friends when I’m late. They can call me. So can my parents, you know, long distance... Ha! Even girls!" Dan turned to me, contorted his face into an I-told-you-so expression, and then continued eating. "Why? What was that about?" Kim asked us both.
"Nothing. Forget it," I dismissed. "So, what’s new Kim?"
"Nothing really. Work, the guitar. You know... Hey? Did that girl ever call you? You know, the one from the club that had a boyfriend or something? Whatever happened to her?"
Dan looked up and gave me the same look. "Nothing, nothing," I dismissed once again. "So, uh, you doing anything interesting tonight?"
Kim told us both about a Chess Night that took place every Tuesday evening. He usually tried to attend as often as possible, but hadn’t done so in a while. It was always held in the same café/bar in the Holešovice section of the city, not far from the center. The name of the place was The Globe (it also doubled as a secondhand English-language bookshop) and each week expats from throughout the city with a passion for chess would gather, mingle, and play. Kim would actually be attending this week, or rather, that night, and invited both Dan and myself. Dan, as usual, said he wasn’t feeling so well but was appreciative of the offer nonetheless. Kim and I agreed to meet in the Dum’s hotel lobby later on that evening and travel to Holešovice together.

We walked into a small room, towards the back of The Globe, which had apparently been reserved. First, Kim introduced me to Arthur. Arthur was the organizer of the Chess night, originally from Leeds, in his late 40s, and resembled a member of ZZ Top with his long, pepper-colored beard. Another one of the dozen or so members of that motley crew sitting before us also had the same yardstick beard. Kim introduced me to him, Jordan, secondly. Jordan was from Newfoundland, in his mid 50s, and like most of the people there, taught English. Kim and I sat next to Jordan and, as Kim struck up a conversation with him, I introduced myself to as many of the others in the room as I could.
That room in the café was arranged in such a way that I couldn’t really communicate with those to the far end. There were four tables, side by side, seating three or four people and hosting chessboards of different colors and sizes depending on whether someone at the table was actually playing or not. Our table, one of the two far end corner tables, had no present need for a chessboard as Kim and Jordan talked away. In the meantime, I managed to strike up a dull conversation with a gray-haired Canadian who happened to be sitting next to me.
"Yeah. So. Teachin’s nice if that’s what you want to do, eh? What if you don’t though? Maybe you can find something else, eh? But if you don’t?"
"Fascinating," I dragged out of my mouth.
"Καλημέρα φιλέ!" Jordan suddenly broke off his conversation with Kim and directed his speech towards me. "Πως είσαι; Καλά;" Jordan has just told me in Greek – with a thick North American accent but still in Greek – 'Good day, friend! How are you? Good?'
I was taken aback instantly. How the hell did this guy know Greek? "How the hell do you know Greek?"
"Lived there buddy! Man does it seem like ages ago. Now that was a beautiful country! Πολύ όμωρφη. Το θυμάμε σαν χθες. Καί οί άνθρωποι πολύ... (Very beautiful. I remember it like yesterday. And the people very...) Man! What was that word...?" He snapped his fingers a few seconds later, "Φιλοξενία!! (Hospitality!!)"
"That’s great! When did you live in Greece?"
"Hmm... Let me get the language back buddy. Before long time! Little after 1980. ’82 I think. I was in Athens most but... Shit, traveled. I remember this... Yeah! ...but journey everywhere. Where are you from?"
"I’m from Philadelphia! Ha ha! Just kidding! You mean from Greece?"
"Ah, yeah," he chuckled slightly. "Greece, friend."
"My mother’s from a town in the north. My father grew up in Athens."
"Ahh, yeah buddy. Very nice, very nice."
Jordan and I continued in this half-Greek/half-English until his Greek, at least what he remembered of it, lost its momentum. We then continued in English. Now that Jordan was back to speaking his native tongue, I clearly detected a zealous tone in his voice and mannerisms which I had only slightly noticed before. Everything he said, he said it as if it were the most vital piece of information I had ever received. As if the revelation that he was currently reading the Marquis de Sade (he had a copy of Sodom and Gomorrah by his side) would somehow raise my spirit to enlightenment. Even when he introduced me to someone new that night, he would always whisper to me first, "Pay attention! This guy’s important! A real intellectual." I assumed Jordan was just one of those rare individuals that, no matter what they do, they do it with the totality of life.
"Hey Jordan!" came an English accent from across the room. It was Arthur, Jordan’s partner in waist-length whiskers. "Fancy a game?"
"Yeah. Of course. That would be fantastic!" he replied. "Sorry Paul, gonna go play an incredible game. We’ll talk again. Goodbye friend," as he got up and went to Arthur’s table.
I took a sip of beer and rolled a cigarette as I watched those two quasi-hippie chess Goliaths, at least as far as the expat community was concerned, set up their pieces. I lit it, and they made their first moves... lost in concentration.
As those two anachronisms from decades past battled it out in that café-arena, I became lost in a rising pillar of cigarette smoke and thought. Who were all these people? None of them belonged here, at least as far as linguistics and nationality were concerned. I always thought that it was just young people, twenty-somethings, that were willing to travel outside the safe confines of a ‘one-week, accommodations-provided and continental breakfast included’ package holiday. They’d strap on their backpacks, travel from one country to another while sleeping in a different hostel each night, and eventually return to the comforts of their G7 country when the money had evaporated. But now I could see... those young individuals weren’t the true daredevils, the explorers, the challengers of popular notions. They just briefly ventured beyond the borders, momentarily struggling to be released from the monotonous modern post-industrialist notions of existence, but eventually fell back in line under the pressure of the Machine by the time they were 30 – soon fitting the statistically productive mold of 1.8children/2.5 cars. But these people, the ones sitting around me, playing chess and drinking beer and wine on a Tuesday worknight, had wandered so far beyond the borders, beyond the grasp of the Machine, that they couldn’t even fathom going back. Not to the country back home. Not to the friends and family back home. No, they often did that. But to the life back home. All of them, or at least most of them, had gone beyond the drudgery of existence haze and into a glory of living phase. Permanent backpackers... constantly on the lookout for what actually is the best, not what was given to them as the best. Constantly exploring that elusive...
"...change?"
"What?"
"I said, ‘Do you want to change?’ I just mated your friend Kim over there, eh? I want a different player and he said you’d be interested. Wanna play?" the middle-aged Canadian whom I had spoken to earlier asked.
I looked around and saw Kim at the bar ordering a beer. I thought what the hell. "Yeah, sure. Let’s give it a go," as I began setting up my pieces.
Three games and two victories later, Kim came over to tell me that if we wanted to catch the last subway, we had to leave soon. We put our coats on, said goodbye to everyone that was still there, and set out for the Vltavská station.
"How did it go?"Kim turned to me as we walked in the frozen night.
"Good. I beat that Canadian guy twice. He won the last one though and I think he would have won the one we were in the middle of playing too if you hadn’t come. Thanks!"
"Ha ha! Don’t mention it."
We eventually found Vltavská and prepared for the long ride home to Modřany.
"So, what did you think, Paul? Did you have a good time?"
"Yeah, it was nice. Thanks for bringing me."
"No problem. I forgot completely about those guys. They’re real friendly. Especially that Jordan, huh? What a talker! He can go on for hours if you don’t stop him!"
"I guess. He seemed friendly enough."
"Don’t get me wrong! He’s a great guy. Just talks a little too much... like Herman but with less booze and more brains. Ha ha ha!" Kim’s laugh could be heard throughout our Metro car. He really liked that last quip. A few drunks sitting next to us temporarily stirred in their sleep. Other than that, no one really paid any attention. Kim continued, "And Arthur? What did you think of him?"
"Nothing much. I mean, I can’t really say. We didn’t have a chance to talk at all. I like the beard though."
"Just like Jordan’s, huh? Arthur’s a nice guy too. Real interesting too. Real interesting... Guess how he makes a living?"
"I don’t know. Teaching?" I shrugged.
"Well, yeah. But I mean – guess how he made a living. Before he moved to Prague. Back in England."
I shook my head in ignorance.
"Come on! Guess!"
"Kim, how the fuck should I know? Just tell me. What?"
"He was a stockbroker! Ha! Did you think of that Paul? That guy! Long haired, hasn’t had a shave in God knows how long, wine guzzling..."
"Wow," I butt in. "Are you serious?"
"Yep. Had a six-figure salary too. Arthur used to wake up every morning at half past six, shave, put on his three-piece suit, eat breakfast with the wife and kids, and head off to the stock exchange."
"Wow... what... What happened? How did he end up here? I mean, why?"
"Well, story is – at least according to Jordan – that he just got fed up with all of it. A week after his youngest kid finished high school, he sat them down at the table and told them he was leaving. No matter what his family told him, Arthur didn’t give a damn. A month later – BAMM! – he was gone. Starting a new life in Prague, working as an English teacher and making a bare fraction of what he was used to back home."
"Incredible... When did all this happen?"
"I don’t know. Maybe seven or eight years ago... Now that’s what I call a lifestyle change, huh? But at least he doesn’t have to shave anymore! Ha ha!" Kim’s laugh filled the Metro car once again as we reached our stop. We rode the escalators to the surface and waited for our bus.
"Hey Kim, what about Jordan? What’s his story?"
"Ha ha! Jordan?! What a character! I can’t even begin to tell you what that guy’s done! I always get it confused. He’s been all around the planet. Been kicked out of a half dozen countries and denied re-entry too. Well, now that you mention it, I think he actually told me that he even had a vasectomy... Jordan. Ha! You’ll have to ask him yourself. I can’t keep track of it all!"
A few months later, I did ask Jordan. He told me everything and was more than willing to share. He told me how he was never allowed to return to Iceland. How he had served prison time in Greece. How he had lived in a hippie-commune in India for almost three years before deciding to travel north with a group of Sikhs. As I prepared to leave, I thanked him for revealing all of his personal stories and adventures to me. Jordan told me they were nothing.
"Nothing? Nothing?! What are you talking about? How many people have lived life the way you have? Seen the things you have?"
"I’m nothing special Paul. Just look at our old friend Kim over there, buddy. Now that guy’s a traveler. Important. A real intellectual."
"Kim? What? Are we talking about the same guy? Have you heard from him lately? The Korean that used to live in the Dum with me? What has he done that’s so special?"
"Sure, bud. Kim’s the master traveler. He hasn’t lived in the same country for over six months for the past fifteen years! Always on the move. Always exploring. Spent half his life walking down the road less traveled and he still hasn't had enough! Now he has lived life!"

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