To Kill the Duke (20 page)

Stalin was now slowly trying to take off his tunic while he licked some of the stuff that he had poured over the girl’s body. Ivan noticed that while he was unbuttoning his tunic and licking, he had one eye on the screen.

“I guess that is why he loves cinema,” Ivan whispered.

Ivan’s eyes began to go dry. He pulled away from the keyhole and blinked both eyes rapidly.

He returned to the keyhole and saw Stalin mounting the girl from behind. Ivan had seen animals mate like this, but didn’t know that humans did. He was amazed that he couldn’t turn his eye away from watching the sex act.

Better than a movie
, he thought to himself as he pushed so hard against the keyhole to try for a better look that he thought his eye might pop out of its socket from the pressure.

Then his eye went dry again. He sighed and blinked extra hard with both eyes to tear them up for another look-see when he heard the high-pitched scream.

At first he thought it was the movie, but then he remembered learning about horror-movie screams during his studies and employment as a movie projectionist. The scream he had just heard wouldn’t be in the type of movie he was showing. He slowly lowered himself back into the now-familiar position of spying on Stalin and the girl. He noticed his eye wasn’t dry anymore as he pressed it against the keyhole for a good look.

He didn’t see Stalin, but he saw the girl. She was sitting up on the bed and her body, looking sticky from whatever Stalin had been putting on it, was shaking uncontrollably.

Ivan found himself doing something he never thought he would be doing — playing hero — because sticking one’s neck out for anyone in the Soviet Union was a sure way to be noticed, which could mean exile, execution or hopefully a promotion if luck had anything to do with what he was about to do.

Ivan stood up, grabbed the doorknob with both hands, and with all his strength started banging his shoulder against the door. This made the girl scream louder.

“It’s bad enough Trotsky Number Seven had to hold Stalin’s penis, but scalping him in front of that beautiful woman is the last reel for me,” he muttered to himself as he kept banging into the door with his shoulder.
Why else would she have been saying ‘too bloody’ if Trotsky Number Seven wasn’t being scalped,
he pondered.

This brought the two men from the ‘shadows’ through the main door. They looked at the girl and heard the banging coming from the door that Ivan was behind. They didn’t like what they had seen and were hearing from behind the door that Ivan was trying to push open. One of the men ran out the bedroom door. The other man made his way to Ivan’s door, and with gun drawn, opened it very quickly.

And of course, when the door opened, Ivan, who had thrown himself into it, fell to the floor and hit his head against the bed frame —knocking him out cold.

When he started coming to, he really thought that he had been dreaming the entire sequence of events, starting from the first time he had entered Alex’s apartment and been told about running the projection room for Uncle Joe. As things started to get clearer in his banged up brain, he realized that he wasn’t in that cold and dingy apartment; he was lying on the floor, next to the bed that had just been used for his leader’s bizarre fornicating.

“You’re very lucky comrade Viznapu.” It was the captain’s voice and he sounded sincere.

“Am I, comrade?” Ivan asked back as he heard the movie still playing in the background.
At least something was going right,
meaning the movie, he thought to himself as he prepared to move to a more prone position.

“Easy comrade,” the man with two wooden spoons said as he moved to help Ivan.

Just then, Ivan noticed something different about the man with two wooden spoons.

“Where are your spoons?” Ivan asked him.

“That bump didn’t damage your eyesight, comrade,” the man now without two wooden spoons smiled.

The captain nodded in agreement.

“Could I get some water? What happened to your spoons, comrade?” Ivan asked the man, now without two wooden spoons.

“No water. The only liquid around here is vodka,” one of the men who brought the movie screen in answered.

“That will do just fine,” the captain said to the man as he reached for the glass of vodka.

“My spoons are in the kitchen, comrade Viznapu,” the man now without two wooden spoons told Ivan.

“But you have been carrying them all night. There hasn’t been a place I saw you in that you were not holding them. They must be very important,” Ivan said.

“They are, comrade.” Remember how I told you my feelings about feeding people? They remind me of my chosen duty, not my appointed
duty,” the man now without two wooden spoons said as he lowered his lips to Ivan’s left ear to whisper something. “I usually have to scrape off a lot of sticky substances and other goo from every orifice of many women’s bodies throughout the night during these film festivals. The women usually come and go with all the big shots from the moment after the first appetizer is served. Tonight was the exception. I didn’t have to do any scraping, and from the looks of Uncle Joe over on the floor, fun and games of this type are over for good.”

The others in the room (except for the woman) all took a swig from the big bottle of vodka before it ended up in the hands of the captain, who poured a small amount in a glass to give to Ivan. As the men all looked at the dead Stalin on the floor, Ivan pondered what was going on.

Uncle Joe Stalin, the leader of the Communist world, is dead and lying on the floor near me, while I lay on in his bed. How will this night end for me? And if it’s true, it sure is the revenge of Trotsky One through Six! Poor Trotsky Number Seven; scalped and dead and will never know that Stalin died right after him. There is no justice,
Ivan thought.

Further thoughts were interrupted when the captain tilted back Ivan’s head and threw the shot of vodka down.

Ivan started to gag.

“Better?” the four men all asked in unison and then broke out into a hearty laughter.

“Bastards!” shouted the lone woman, who was a dead-ringer for Marlene Dietrich.

“Listen bitch,” the other man who had brought the movie screen said, as he grabbed her by her throat in one rapid movement. Ivan noticed that the man’s hand was so big and strong looking, and the woman’s throat so little and weak looking, that one flick of the man’s pinky finger would snap her head right off her neck.

“Leave the woman alone,” the captain said to the man who was holding the girl by the throat.

That man turned and snarled at the captain as he tightened his grip around the woman’s neck. “Your day in power is long gone captain.”

In one swift motion, the captain took the butt of his machine pistol which had been slung around his shoulder, and hit the man on top of his head. The man crumpled to the floor and the Marlene Dietrich
look-a-like regained her breath. The other man who had helped set up the movie screen had made a move in the captain’s direction, but he soon felt the cold steel of the man now without two wooden spoons, who was now the man holding a pistol under this man’s chin.

“Better than a movie, eh comrade Viznapu?” the man now without two wooden spoons but with a pistol inquired of Ivan.

“The only thing missing is some popcorn,” the captain piped in with.

“Thank you,” the girl said to the captain.

“Quite all right. I hate men who abuse women,” the captain replied.

“Comrade let’s sit down and discuss our futures,” the man now without two wooden spoons said to the man who he was holding a gun to.

“Yes,” agreed the captain, as he stripped the man lying at his feet of three weapons.

“Let the woman go; clean up, and leave,” the man now without two wooden spoons said.

Everyone agreed, and she left.

Ivan wished he could have gone with her.

“What about the projectionist?” the man who had a gun
still
being held to his face asked of both the captain and the man now without two wooden spoons.

“He’s with us. He’s okay,” the captain said.

The man now without two wooden spoons put his gun away very slowly and motioned for the man who had helped bring the movie screen in earlier to find a seat.

The man did as he was motioned to and sat down.

“Ivan, tell this man what you saw,” the man now without two wooden spoons told Ivan.

“Don’t lie about anything,” cautioned the captain.

“Before I do comrades, can someone tell me what happened to Trotsky Number Seven? I mean, he was scalped, but there is no body let alone a mess,” Ivan asked of the men in the room with him.

“That fall really messed him up,” the man with a pistol to his chin said.

“Comrade Viznapu, Trotsky Number Seven was never in this room. Just Stalin, the girl and you in the projection closet,” the captain said.

“Surely that scream I heard was that of someone being scalped,” Ivan asked weakly.

At that, all the conscious men in the room started to laugh out loud.

And, after learning about the fate of Trotsky Number Seven, Ivan told the three men everything without omitting anything and without creating any lies.

“So our now-dead fearless leader died in the saddle?” the man now without two wooden spoons asked sarcastically.

“Like his heroes — cowboys!” the captain added. “However the cowboys and Indians were not known for anal penetration.”

“Comrades, are you sure that the man lying dead on the floor is Stalin?” asked the man who had helped bring in the movie screen.

“Who else could it be!?” screamed Ivan. “I believe my own eyes and they saw Stalin humping the woman who looked like Marlene Dietrich, but really wasn’t Dietrich, who I thought screamed because she saw Trotsky Number Seven being scalped by Stalin, but was really screaming because Stalin was dying while having anal penetration — whatever that means — with her.”

“Comrade Viznapu, there are only two reasons for a scream like you heard to happen,” the man now without two wooden spoons said to Ivan.

“Fear and/or anal penetration,” the captain said.

“Maybe both at the same time,” the man now without two wooden spoons added.

“No comrade, there is a third way,” the man who had helped bring in the movie screen said. “Viznapu was right — someone getting scalped would scream like we all heard it.”

“Okay comrades, where is Trotsky Number Seven?” Ivan asked.

“Wow,” replied the captain “Ivan is getting bold.”

“He’s on his way home,” said the man now without two wooden spoons.

“So I now know about Trotsky Number Seven, but I know nothing of anal penetration,” Ivan said.

“Do you mean, comrade, that you have never heard of anal penetration?” the captain asked. The man now without two wooden spoons nodded his head in agreement with the captain’s question.

Ivan nodded yes.

“Didn’t you ever show pornographic movies?” the captain asked.

“Just once. I didn’t see anything, because I kept my eyes covered,” said Ivan.

Everyone but Ivan laughed at that answer.

“This man is funny,” the man now without two wooden spoons said.

“I didn’t think watching a woman having sex with a horse was sex at all. It was disgusting and revolting at the same time,” Ivan said. “It bothered me that the audience loved the film, and after I complained to my superiors it was easy for me not to have to worry about being picked to be a projectionist when a porno movie was being shown.”

“What did you do, threaten to quit?” the man who had helped bring in the movie screen asked Ivan sarcastically.

“No, I just whined so much, they made an addition via a subtraction when they let me have my way,” Ivan said.

“Ivan wouldn’t find anal sex pleasurable,” the man who had helped bring in the screen said.

“And
you
do?” the captain asked him.

“It’s the ultimate form of sex for me. Total power over your partner,” the man said.

“Is he your partner?” the captain said pointing to the man who he had knocked out.

“I like it with women, not men,” the man replied.

“Know what I have to say about anal sex?” the man now without two wooden spoons said.

Everyone shook their heads no.

“Rectum, it almost killed him!”

“Great pun,” the captain said.

“Pun, as in punishment,” the man who had helped bring in the screen said.

“I just learned about puns from our now-dead fearless leader,” Ivan said.

“Tell us one, Ivan,” urged the captain.

“He came around for dinner. We ate and drank for 20 minutes and then he passed out again,” Ivan said.

“That stinks,” the captain said as he held his nose with his right thumb and index finger.

“I have one,” chimed in the man now without two wooden spoons.

“Can’t we go back to anal penetration?” the man who liked anal penetration asked.

“You talk, we’ll listen,” the captain said.

“I’d rather swap puns,” Ivan said.