Peter Pišťanek - The Wooden Village

Freddy doesn’t even know how he found his way out of the Perverts’ Centre. He feels relaxed. He’ll come back, why not? As soon as he’s saved up the price. Now he’s a club member, it will all be easier.

* * *

Freddy’s joy at finding somewhere to realise his painfully suppressed inclinations, and especially at meeting Sida, soon passes.

The money has gone and Freddy has no chance of getting more soon to pay for another visit to the Perverts’ Club.

Now he sits by the lavatories like a body with no soul. He keeps thinking about the Perverts’ Club and tries to imagine what Sida is probably doing right now. He is not racked by jealousy, but anger at not being there as well, at lacking the money for these delights.

If Feri Bartaloš finally gave Freddy the money he owes him for the stolen bicycles, he would at least have something. But Feri is rarely to be seen in the Wooden Village. He comes only rarely and quickly drains unfinished glasses of beer and chews on leftover pieces of chicken on the plates. Eržika does the same, working from the opposite side. Both cast fearful looks at the snack bar counters lest the bastard boss see them.

The eternally drunken and stinking end user of unfinished plates, Majerník, reacts to their competition by incoherent shouts of protest, but neither he, nor anyone in his gang, has the energy to stand up to the more solidly built Bartaloš and his loud and hysterical wife.

However, Feri avoids the lavatory. He knows that Freddy Piggybank will stop him and claim his money from the sale of the stolen bicycles, so why would he go there? Freddy is furious: he could use the money.

Even the beer drinkers don’t pay after using the lavatory; they simply run away from Freddy. Freddy can’t catch them and even if he did, he wouldn’t dare say a word to them. He is a coward. He only dares to challenge the hairy poets, but they ignore him; they usually urinate against the fence of the construction site, Freddy’s former car park.

Constant sexual excitement and general apathy lead Freddy Piggybank to neglect his work duties; he does not disinfect, sweep or clean the dirty lavatories, nor change the towels and soap, and he doesn’t sell lavatory paper. Soon the lavatory looks like Freddy’s mind.

At possibly the least opportune moment, the bastard boss shows up. After the inspecting the lavatories, he runs out with a handkerchief over his mouth, as pale as a ghost. He leans against the wall and the jerk’s dark angry look settles on the seemingly unconcerned fat slob sitting by the lavatories.

A few seconds later, Freddy is fired and out on the street.

“You miserable homeless scum!” rages the bastard boss. He’s the manager but can’t rely on anyone any more. Some of them turn the place into a whorehouse and steal bicycles; another one gets into fights and gets himself killed. This one just doesn’t move a bloody finger. There is mess and dirt everywhere! This just can’t go on any longer! Piggybank can pack up and get out of here right now! Did Piggybank hear what he’s just said?

Freddy unwillingly gets up. He reaches for the change at the bottom of the bowl.

“Leave the money right there!” orders the bastard boss. Piggybank needn’t think that it’s his money. The manager won’t let him sit by the lavatory acting as cashier, collecting an entrance fee. No. Customers pay this money to shit, piss and vomit into clean bowls and urinals. Clean enough to eat from.

Freddy moves his hand away. He is silent. The bastard boss is basically right. Freddy took his eye off the job. He was thinking too much about Sida Tešadíková. Suddenly, he sees that now he won’t be able to save up the money to visit the Perverts’ Centre again.

He sadly locks up his trailer and leaves the Wooden Village.

* * *

After a long time, Freddy goes home to get something to eat. His parents welcome him as if he’s come from somewhere in Africa. Freddy eagerly accepts the food he’s offered, and politely but monosyllabically answers his parents’ inquisitive questions, while his eyes constantly scan the interior of the family house; he is searching for something to sell profitably, or at least pawn.

Once he has finished the bean soup, stewed beef and dumplings, sausage and mustard, horseradish, and bread rolls, and five different sorts of pastry, he puts on a weary expression and announces that he is going to bed. He goes upstairs to his room and pricks up his fat ears. When he is sure that his parents are out in the orchard behind the house, he gets out of bed, goes down to the ground floor, where his fat scrounging fingers open the drawers of his parents’ sideboard. He finally finds what he is looking for: family jewellery — engagement rings, a thick gold necklace, and a cross. He puts the loot in his pocket, quietly leaves the house, and hurries to the bus stop.

In the city he finds a pawnshop and offers them the stolen gold. What he’s paid barely suffices for one visit to the Perverts’ Centre .

He drops in at the Wooden Village and discreetly, avoiding the bastard boss’s eyes, crawls into his trailer. There, in the musty cold, he sits, waiting until five o’clock, when the Justine club opens.

Piggybank is one of the first visitors. As a club member, he doesn’t have to waste time with entrance formalities and immediately asks for the Teacher. He takes a seat in the bar, and soon Sida Tešadíková comes to pick him up.

After an hour of whipping, wild riding on his back, being bound to a wheel, hanging by his wrists and similar voluptuous delights, Freddy is happily tired and satisfied. He is getting dressed. Sida sits and smokes a cigarette.

“Listen, Sida…” Freddy says. “Don’t you need an assistant?”

“What do you mean?” asks Sida.

“Well, an assistant,” Freddy explains. “Someone to tie up the victim, hand you the torture instruments, and so on. Like an altar boy, if you see what I mean.”

Sida nods and takes a sip from the can. “I’ve never given it a thought,” she says. “But if I did, it ought to be a woman, shouldn’t it? We do get gays here, too, but I only service men who are into women.”

“Mediæval executioners had helpers,” says Freddy. “Imagine the effect…”

“What’s all this about?” Sida asks. “Are you so bored that you want to be my altar boy?”

“It so happens I don’t have anything to do right now,” says Freddy. “I’d be a good altar boy. I’d be your slave. You could humiliate me as much as you want. I’d put up with anything.”

“Seriously?” Sida can’t believe it.

She finishes her cigarette and stubs it out in the ashtray.

“But it wouldn’t be much fun being my slave,” she says. “Lots of suffering and no reward. And you’d make peanuts. I’d have to pay you out of my own earnings.”

“That’s all right, Sida,” Freddy says eagerly. “Glad to be of service.”

“I can get angry and ratty sometimes,” Sida warns him. “I’ll whip you until you bleed for no reason at all. How will you like that?”

Freddy almost faints from joy and excitement.

“I could handle that,” he says.

“Very well, then,” Sida agrees. “I’ll try you out. But first we sign a contract.”

“A contract?” Freddy doesn’t understand.

“Yes, a contract,” Sida says. “A slavery contract, get it? And you’ll sign in your own blood.”

Sida opens a door and lets Freddy into her dressing room.

“If you want to start today,” Sida says, “get ready. Some of this stuff might fit you.”

She points to a cupboard full of leather, rubber, latex, and metal accessories that Silvia, her boss, bought by the ton in Austria.