One night in Prague

May 27-30

I knew I would be lingering in the old city around the drunken revelry with masses of foreign tongues stampeding in the centre. Spent days watching the effervescent tourists swarm Wenceslas square, Charles bridge, and the citadel across the river. I was torn between an intense love and hatred of this place. The drunken hordes of swerving shirtless Brits mingling with shockingly attractive women. The tourists sticking to the pavement like jelly, stopping every second to take another snapshot of the ancient panorama surrounding them. They are everywhere. Roaming in packs, marking off sights like homework, postcarding themselves in this fossil of a city. Touching as much as possible as if it were on display, feeling nothing. I heard more English than Czech in the downtown streets. But for all its weekend visitors and stunning tourist traps, the city was impeccably quiet and clean. Instead of cars, pedestrians rule the streets, as cruel stoplights rule the pedestrians. I loved the ornate, decadent, colourful architecture; every building completely different than the last. I loved walking beside the dark river and beautiful graveyards. I loved the massive park on a hill in the west that looks over the city. It was good to go there and sleep. We were once three travellers who climbed to an empty patch and sprawled out, soaking up rays and basking in the earth. We slept and dreamed of solid ground. I awoke as a laughing family shuffled into single file, taking turns running through the fountain to cool down.

I found my hostel after much chagrin and many tired exchanges with the locals. I know that all you need is a bed, shower, and toilet, but this place was crummy. I chose it solely for its location, free breakfast, and cheap rates. There were shared unisex showers operated by a push-button which gave me a light tepid stream. That sprinkle lasted for ten seconds, and then you had to push again, or you got no more water. Breakfast was as hard and chewy as crusty dirt, but there was free coffee. Entering my room at night, I noticed that many bunk beds were packed in far too tight for the size of the room, and the only window was screaming red advertised light. This came from the street lamp but also the football-field Star Wars billboard across the street. The room was always scarred with red light, and everything creaked.

I wanted so fiercely to write about one night in the square, with the noise hovering, the chatter and banter of drunks and the shoes scratching on stone, the thick urine-soaked air, all around me broken glass. I remember treading down street after street, noticing how each one formed a different pattern of cobbled stones. I remember the fairytale castles looming side by side, distant and solemn, commanding concrete respect. The bright orange streetlamps lined my field of vision. I remember watching people staggering towards them, friends huddling beside them, and couples flirting between them. Dancing clowns, all of them. Happy as children, spinning out of control, feeling safe because everyone else was doing it too. Someone launched a frisbee through the air. A brief instant of a thousand eyes catching its path, waiting and watching its gentle descent. It skidded and landed beside one of many paddy wagons. The glazed eyes returned to the wobbly world of streaking orange madness. There was me in the middle, floating through the craze. I wait patiently for something to happen as everything flashes past. I sit on the curb and touch the ground with a stick, trying to trace my path through the world; I move the stick from stone to stone, listening to the circus of noise rise up the ancient walls. I try to remember these feelings but they vanish and fade into the next moment.

I remember waiting in the hostel for this Brazilian girl to return to pick up her bags. Renata was a fine creature who happened to be in my room. She had dark hair, long and straight down past her shoulders. She was small, with a muscular but feminine body. She wore a plain shirt with green shorts, tight and accentuating, with wonderful curves around her hips, breasts, and mesmerizing ass. She had a shy face, tanned mahogany brown by the sun. I struggled to distract my gaze from her dark eyes and coffee coloured skin. I could tell she was intelligent, from the way she described her travels so far, her life back home, and her knowledge of five languages. We talked about favellas – slums and ghettos outside of Rio/Buenos Aires, the ups and downs of travelling alone, and other stuff. We could have been talking about the finer aspects of potato peeling for all I cared; the moment I made her laugh and a smile snuck across her face, there was nothing else happening around me. It was gorgeous. She was gorgeous. I could not look away, and she may or may not have sensed it. I quickly decided to cover my tracks and informed her I was here with friends, and we were going to stay out until dawn, and that she should join us. This was all very difficult because the other girl in my room stood in direct opposition to everything Renata embodied. This other one was a stringy blonde, buck-toothed, with a cockney accent and a sour look that made me cringe. I managed to keep her away from the conversation, but Renata was unsure, and eventually declined our company. Maybe she thought my travelling partner was not simply my travelling partner, maybe she wanted to be alone. After a long night, returning to the hostel, I ran into her at dawn. I decided to sleep for a couple hours but urged her to wake me up when she returned. I vaguely remember someone dark standing over me, repeating my name, and me repeatedly groaning. I never saw her again. But I was so taken with her. And now here I wait, some dumb fool. Everyone in this hostel seems to be three or four years my junior. It feels very strange, because everyone else I have met in hostels have been older. This is crazy. I am in Praha, my last night, and what am I waiting for? A last fleeting glimpse of a face I will never remember, but always recognise. I have some charming abilities, and I have been called a sweet young thing. But let’s face it; the chances of me altering her path are slim to none. I might be able to spend a half hour, a few hours with her at most, depending on my luck.

This luck never came. I stepped out for a quick supper and when I came back she had taken her bag and left, leaving me only a note and a slight stinging sensation in my temples. There was no throbbing sensation in my trousers or painful heart palpitations, as I had hoped for. I was just slightly bitter, and tired. Foul animal that I am, I detached and displaced my lust instantly. The young woman at reception was a true Czech beauty. She had long dark hair as well, but she was tall and thin, with long long legs. She was in her late twenties, around six feet tall. Her face was equally long, and she wore perfect skin with a sexual grin. As if she was amused with my weakness. She sympathised with my torturous waiting for the unknown goddess to step back into my life. I notice her watching a video on her computer with a familiar casual dialogue: Seinfeld. I ask her if she has seen this episode and she says she has seen all of them. We get along well after that. She promises to leave a message from me to the girl in case she returns. Jaded, I made it as vague and brief as my directions to the new hostel: “Get out at Vysherad station. Take stairs down into valley.” On my dejected way to the second hostel, I witnessed two wonderful events. Stepping out of the Vysherad subway station and walking down through a forest in the middle of the city as the sun set above me. The sky was slashed with red and it warmed my soul as I descended into a thousand trees, a quiet valley of green. The sun dipped off the edge of the earth but I could not see it happen. When I emerged from the valley the world was cold glowing blue. Upon arrival I climbed out onto the small patio. On one side, a train thundered past the subway bridge which hung over the forest high in the sky, and on the other, there were fireworks off in the distance. I was too far to hear, but close enough to see. I realised I left a huge plastic jug of juice at the first hostel, and decided to retrieve it. There was no way I would make it through the night without that flavoured sugar, pumping me sober energy.

I made it back downtown and walked towards a sign prohibiting the presence of pigeons. Though I did not know exactly how this law would be enforced. A pigeon inside a black circle with a red line crossing it out would surely alert the other pigeons to their wretched fate. There were a dozen benches under trees, evenly separated in two lines, with an unobstructed view of the square. There were all sorts of characters. A group of teenage misfits, drinking and tossing their finished beer cans, impatient for their friend to finish rolling his joint. Meticulously waiting for perfection. A half-dozen crooked men were sprawled out on the wooden benches supporting their dead weight. A few restless souls drifted in between benches, floating comatose zombies. I felt their lifeless eyes and saw their hands and knees, quivering for a moment of chemical release. Everyone was starting to look the same. I put streets and distance between us. I looked for people that were more alive. I wanted to dance, to feel life, to shake out the dust.

In a narrow passage between two streets, there were dark figures playing music in the shadows. Closer to the sound, I recognised riffs and chords of classic rock. Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd. I slowed my pace and fell out of place in the stream of crossing people. There were two young men with long scraggly black hair beating on old beat-up acoustic guitars. Busking for food or money or dope or whatever. Such pale gaunt faces, all pock-marked and hollow. The one with a bandana said something in Czech and pointed to the giant plastic juice box I’d been slugging from all night. I walked over and handed him the tasty fruit drink. I motioned for them to finish it, sat down cross-legged on the curb beside them, waiting and hoping for the warm familiar rhythms to begin again. There was a third one who stood in the middle of the alley, a dark-haired woman, rushing from one person to the next, pleading for handouts, arms outstretched and face upturned, moving relentless and desperate under the stars. She looked straight ahead as the rushing flow of bodies moved through her like a turnstile. I tried to talk with the guitarists. I asked them how long had they been together, played together, been on the streets, been fighting for meals, where was home? They were from Hungary or Slovakia, and spoke next to no English, but we made motions and signals and sign language and communicated. I rolled a hash cigarette and asked if they would play me something, nothing I would recognise. Bandana laughed and told me they only played for money. But they started strumming old folk songs, rasping and painful and playful and beautiful. I wondered if you could get through life without sharing language, without sharing moments. The woman stood still out there, glaring at the world that would not look at her, glaring at me, tired and resentful and just dog-tired. We passed the juice jug around until it was empty. I was there for twenty, maybe thirty minutes, turning to peaceful jelly as the hash hit me and my mind felt pleasantly wordless, cupped by my weightless body. So much life was cradled in those instruments. They looked transparent in the night. Completely alone and barely alive. The woman looked at me, distrustful. I dropped some krown into a small tin can and decided to leave. The three haggard gypsies wore all black, pierced with metal and earrings and bracelets they jingled out of the night, ringing out of my life.

My sense of direction was fading. As the a.m. people drifted off to fumble with locked doors and sleep to life, I was losing myself towards the next empty space. Tired steps traced a clopping path hopefully towards the silent river. What did I want to see here? Everything dead and obsolete was fenced off. I wandered past ancient relics, buildings and statues, and felt quiet admiration until next to nothing but mild surprise. Culture and civilisation was not here first. The river was here first. The river and fish and trees and birds and land and animals we drain and drill and crush and kill. Ignore and forget, and you feel no shame or guilt. No one has to think about wilderness in cities. But there is peace there, when you find it. There is also peace in the streets. In the foggy haze of bodies whirling past you. On subways and sidewalks where we move the living; in museums and cemeteries where we preserve the dead; at concerts and festivals where we make our noise. The hushed starry night is wrapped up tight, holding its breath until the next circus troupe noises past. They say everyone is heading for Charles bridge. I suddenly felt so completely removed from life, a spectator of the spectacle. I curled into a ball, looked at my hands and knees, and started to wonder why everyone felt so free back there in the square. We are all just trapped in the current, clinging to debris in a cloudy river, holding on to moments tightly like a child clutches candy. Do you relish the safety of that familiar feeling, when you think time stops for you and you alone? Touching on those beautiful lapses in time when you become unstuck. I walked along the river, running my hand along the railing, the walls, wondering if you could touch something and a jolt of electrical sense data would hit you in the head with a mirror into the past. Who else walked liked me? Was I really so alone? Everyone has these thoughts. Man small world big. Man thinks man made world. Man takes all the space from world and pushes himself off the edge. I walked towards Charles bridge, in order to look off the edge.

I had been there during dawn with the travellers, as a million wispy balls of pollen, a million flying bugs swarmed the view. The chunks of pollen floated up and down like fat snowflakes in a storm. I thought of the bubbles we used to blow out of a little bottle, watching a child put the key to their lips and let out spheres of fizz. The bugs moved like we did, roaming in packs and attacking someone unsuspecting as they circled and tossed in the wind as the giant victim flailed their arms. Now it was night, and the people were clustering near the sound of guitars. I walked towards them and watched and listened. The one with the biggest audience was playing tunes of love and peace, man. Imagine, Let It Be, and others I forget. He had them all wrapped around his fingers, strumming the chords with too much drama, drooping his head forward and snapping it back with the motions. There was a smaller number of people, myself included, hanging around the fringe of the love circle. One gloomy girl lit a cigarette, cast an indifferent look back at the fools, and snickered to herself. She was lonely, waiting for someone who would not show. There were other sitters and squatters and standers hanging back, watching and hearing the music float into the sky. The guitar player asked everyone to clap their hands, come on now, sing together. The voices formed a gospel chorus while the faces glowing in the heat and the smiling teeth lit up the night. Everyone was being slowly propelled forward, closer, tighter. Swaying with the song as the wind whipped up off the simmering water, everything felt scripted. A commercial of happiness, a postcard from life. I think, in a minute they are going to join hands. All the sounds rolling into each other, echoing in and out. The stars and moon reflected off the water, bodies simmering, everything moving, raving blue. I walked back to the square.

Alone for only this one night, my friends having left for Germany earlier that day, I decided I wanted to have sex with a prostitute. It did not start out this way, and it certainly did not end as planned. I am not a perverted individual; I only have certain needs which must occasionally be satisfied. Besides, I have nothing but respect for professional lovers. Prostitution is the oldest profession, and it will outlast everything else. I headed for Václavské Námestí aka Wencenclas Square; the local hotbed of prostitution. Wandering towards the unmarked exit to leave the old town square, I was carried through the dark narrow alleys by lively bodies. I felt lost in the current. Wavering in the night, they swerved back and forth like a nebulous mass towards their next drink. I sat down on the street curb and exchanged glances with the masses. One Irish bloke sat down next to me, told me his name, his troubles, and his desire to sin. I absorbed everything and spit out callous indifference. “Do you know where you’re going?” I asked. “Nae, ahve lost me friends,” he answered. In all this mess, we cannot even lose ourselves. The people danced in and out of the square for hours, forever, and I tried to leave.

On my way home that night, I was accosted by ugly prostitutes. A tiny brown woman with black scraggly hair, eastern or Hispanic, old enough to be my mother, approached me and asked for a light. I handed her the fire and then she grabbed my hips and thrust her crotch against mine. “Vat are you, German?” I then saw her drugged out sickly old face, and decided, despite her forwardness, I knew she wasn’t the one. I told her I was English and not interested in French. She whispered “I suck your coke, I do anal, vat you vant?” Her starved little body wrapped around my legs tighter. I told her NO, get off me now. “How much you got, I do special price for you.” I eventually peeled her off me as she ironically told me to fuck off as she took jogged towards her next victim. Other women with the same gaunt faces on different bodies snuck across my path. Something dark in the shadows suggestively whispered “blowjob?” and others tried to grab me. My foggy unfinished thoughts were interrupted as I dragged myself back down into the valley I felt trapped in my body, wondering if I could ever leave my head behind. I watched myself stumbling through the night, like in those dreams where you see yourself and have no control. Slowly spiralling down the cement trail, waiting for crazies lurking in the shadows. I found my way to the foam mattress, sank into the pillow and fabric clutching a glass of water and heard the birds rising with the sun. I fell into a dream and hoped someone would wake me up, so I would not miss the train.