Baltimore

Baltimore

Copyright © 2014 Jelena Lengold

English translation by Persida Bošković

Front cover and layout design by Sadie Crofts

Serbian Modern Literature Series (SMiLeS)
Published by:
Blooming Twig Books
New York / Tulsa
www.bloomingtwig.com

All rights reserved.
This book may not be photocopied for personal or professional use. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without permission in writing from the author and/or publisher.

Hardcover: ISBN 978-1-61343-052-1
Paperback: ISBN 978-1-61343-053-8
eBook: ISBN 978-1-61343-054-5

Printed in the United States by arrangement with Geopoetika publishing (Belgrade, Serbia)
www.geopoetika.com

Let’s get something clear first:

If this is going to be one of those stories in which everyone is nice and polite, then we’d better stop now.

I would like to tell you everything about everything, and there is so much to say. You get that, don’t you? When you want to say it all, not everyone can be pleasant and polite. Least of all me.

Then, there’s my family. With its highly developed sense of drama, a trait I too acquired at an early age as its equal member.

Then all those diseases, which frightened me and still do.

The numerous lies I sometimes lose track of and then think I’ll get confused and forget what I said and to whom.

The amount of disdain I feel, mostly in the morning, while I’m taking off my nightgown, throwing it on the washing machine and getting into the bathtub.

The things I try to forget, but sometimes go back to, then chase away yet again and remember once more… this can be exhausting, you know.

The predictability of certain conversations – well, this is perhaps the worst of all.

The predictability of everything that follows.

And immediately after, or parallel to this, the hope that soon someone will surprise me in a superior and completely magical way. But, this doesn’t happen anymore. If it ever did. All right, it used to happen, but back then I was more easily surprised.

When do we stop being young? When we feel back pain for the first time, or when there is nothing left to surprise us?

The time difference between Belgrade and Baltimore is six hours.

You might think this is crazy, but almost every day at 2:15 p.m., I sit at my computer and watch this guy in Baltimore on his way to work. He has the misfortune of living on a corner where one of those street cameras was installed. This is the location of a fast-food place. A street light. A bus stop. Nothing out of the ordinary.

He leaves his building every morning at 8:15 a.m., local time, usually carrying a briefcase. Naturally, I gave him a name. It’s Edgar. Along with a name, I also gave him a biography. Edgar works for an insurance company. He’s single. That is to say, I’ve never seen him leave his apartment in the morning with a hottie. It looks like he doesn’t have a dog either. He walks out of his building and waits for the bus, completely unaware of the fact that some silly woman from Belgrade is watching him as he goes to work.

I wait for the bus with him almost every day. The angle at which the camera was set up enables me to always see only a part of his face, and sometimes Edgar turns his back to me as he looks to see if his bus is coming.

Sometimes Edgar is late. He runs out of his building with a sandwich in his hand.

Sometimes he walks slowly, looking tired, as if he hadn’t slept all night.

Sometimes he stares at some papers, without even looking up, while walking down the path from his building to the bus stop. As he waits for the bus, he continues his reading.

Always alone. He never carries an umbrella. If it does rain, Edgar just pulls his hood over his head and shelters that briefcase of his under his jacket. This brought me to the conclusion that the content of the briefcase was more important to Edgar than his own head.

By this time, my work day has long begun and I usually imagine myself buying an overseas plane ticket some day and then flying to Baltimore, getting out of the airplane and into a yellow cab, giving the cab driver the name of that street, arriving at the bus stop at precisely 8:10 a.m., local time, and waiting for Edgar to appear. He arrives wearing his yellowish hooded jacket. I look at him and say:

“Hello, Edgar. I know everything about you and your life. I know how lonely you are. Fuck going to work today because I’ve travelled halfway across the world to spend this day with you. Let’s go to the zoo. Let’s go to a big park. Tell me what it’s like in this insurance company, Edgar. Are they giving you a hard time?”

This is usually when my inspiration gives out on me.

Edgar, whose name of course isn’t Edgar at all, would probably see me as just another crazy woman with a strange accent, move back a step in a politically correct manner, and turn away from me.

Or, he just might surprise me. Who knows?