I think I was
flying. I must have been flying, since nothing else explained how fast I got to
LaVerna that night. I turned at the corner and saw the badly-lit sign above the
glass door and the dim reddish glow coming from between the curtains framing
the rectangle that was my destination. As I flew closer to it, I tried to see
through the glass, to make out the shape that was supposed to be there waiting.
A shape I craved to see... Ah, there it was. A huge thing enveloped in black,
standing by the bar, its crimson head above others, shining peculiarly in the
boring crowd.
I burst the door
wide open and a flow of hot air smashed me in the face. My eyesight was all
blurry from the cigarette smoke, yet my lungs grasped for it as if I had just resurfaced
from a pool of dark night air to the bliss of carbon dioxide. My feet walked
automatically to the dark shape, with all my courage dangerously dragging at my
heels. I sat next to him. Only then he turned. And then he sat. And smiled.
He wasn't visibly
bruised. It didn’t look like his pride was hurt either, I could see that much
in the freakish brothel light. LaVerna was no brothel, but it had always
reminded me of one, a little Gothic chapel just fit for sinning and dirty dark
confessions… which was exactly what I had come there for. He had sinned and I
was to be his priestess - a priestess rather excited to be hearing about this
magnetic man's mischief. I got a drink, he had none before him. He never drank.
I had no time to calm my shaking knees or adjust my eyes to the room light, so
I just drained my double Cachaça like sacred water from the Holy Grail,
believing it will purify me and instantly cooled off. How had it been, I asked.
He leaned on the
chair, turning his lusty body to me, but looking away to some nonexistent
distance. He kept smiling, so I knew it went well. They first took the train,
he said, arrived there without big troubles. They had initially planned to take
the traditional walk to the stadium - all seven hundred of them, but the police
had said no and took them there by bus, motherf*ckers, traitors, ACAB. They had
been very loud at that point. However, they controlled themselves, just until
after the first half. The Others were just a few meters away, separated from
them by a fluid line of neon green vests and a couple of fences that went down
first, then white plastic seats rained on the neon vests, who flowed away in
streams to find shelter, and on the bastards that stood closest. After some
brawling, he got hit with something on the head, lost consciousness for a
moment... Woke up on dirty beery concrete, somebody stepping on his hand in
that very moment, which got him real mad… Endless shouting, cracking noise,
blazing lights from everywhere. They had started the show while he was
insensible.
I
felt myself shivering. He was taking me on a trip to hell with him and I
indulged in the pleasure of it, melted at the scenes of chaos radiating from
his every breath. I could imagine all the things he didn't say since they were
obvious and not out of the ordinary for him. Like the sound of sirens, the
vuvuzelas, the chorus, the rhythm of destruction, the symphony of swearing. The
Red Sea of scarves and the heads with black balaclavas turned in the direction
of the Green Sea just two broken fences away. I could smell the anticipation in
the muscles under their black jackets, all the same. Had you removed the
balaclavas, all the heads would have been the same as well, naked, bald,
glistening with the continuous light emitted by the pyro dancing in the air
above the fighting and raging crowds.
Of course it had
been the cops to f*ck it
all up. Chased them all up to different sides and kept them far from each
other, those traitors, scum, ACAB. They had stayed put until the match was over
and for a few hours after it, while waiting for the train home to come. The
cops had been there all the time, but so had the Others, since just a few
meters behind the police wall, five of Them stood by a bench. A crystal-clear
provocation. All in black, heads turned in the same direction, upwards, trying
to smell horror in the night air. But there was none. Three of Us had managed
to break through the living wall of uniforms and reach the five at the bench.
The police were too late. Nothing had really changed, except all five Others
now seemed to be sleeping on the ground, as if praying to a God that resided
below its surface. They had looked the same as before, yet he was sure that
once washed all the balaclavas would paint the crystal water scarlet.
Did you get it, I
was shaking again as I asked. All this, was it for nothing? Had the atavistic
mission of all times been successful? He smiled wider, the cold eyes of the man
that just painted inferno for me warmed up. He slid his phone out of his
pocket, played with it for a minute and then showed me the desired picture. It
was a before-and-after one. A vast green flag the size of three cars proudly
displayed on Their tribune, then the same flag turned
upside down in the hands of the Crimson Thieves.
And there it was,
my reason for flying there in the middle of the night. The peak of my
excitement, the reward for all scheming and sleepless nights, for the couple of
sweaty hours before dawn, for the filth that had grazed my breasts, for the
regret that was now almost gone. The pride of their firm had been stolen; there
was no pride they could return to now. The green will be painted over by
crimson again, the crimson that could never be washed, the crimson that glowed
in our eyes, the crimson that flowed in our veins.
His smiling face
was painfully close all of a sudden, gravity sucking me in. What for? No reason
for lusty bites and heavy breathing now, it could grant me no redemption. I
used to think I was holy, a sacrificial virgin, but not anymore. Had I not slept
with Him I still could be… Yet it had to be done. The biggest baldhead shining
in the green crowd had been responsible for the flag, and he left home with me.
The flag had to be passed down to someone else, to the second-in-command, someone
who didn't go off to f*ck a chick he just met on a football match that night...
someone who just ‘happened’ to be among the five sitting on the bench. It was
ours now. That is all that mattered. He stopped smiling for the first time
since we met that night.
Why was it that
he found it difficult to believe me when I tried believing myself so hard? I'd
done it for him and for all the other sinners. I was their priestess after all;
the highest-ranking sinner among them, which, according to all celestial laws,
made it my responsibility. And they forgave my sins, just as I created theirs.
I sometimes catch myself thinking it is because of our fallen souls that hell
is red, burning with the fire of pyro, screaming to the rhythm of the chorus
with our fists doing the job of the devils’ tuning forks. And for all that,
purity is a not such a big price to pay.
Yes, I used to be
holy. Now, I am hooli instead.
Angie Siljanoska
