In Your Eye Cont'd

A couple days back I had an interesting episode. I was walking towards my friend Anya's apartment, just one station south of where I live. This area of Moscow, in the northwest, a couple stations outside of the center, is dominated by Leningradskii Shosse, an enormous multi-lane highway that leads right up to the center of Moscow in one direction, and all the way up to St. Petersburg in the other direction. Nonetheless, this neighborhood is quite green once you get away from the main road, and most of the buildings are older 5-floor apartment buildings in tan brick, a big difference from the newer highrises in the outermost areas of Moscow.
On the way to Anya's house you pass by The Square of Ernst Thalmann, dedicated to a pre-war German Communist who in the fight againstthe Nazisdisastrously decided not to cooperate with the more moderate socialists, labeling his own potential allies the real fascists. There is a big statue of him in cast iron, and next door is a new 2-story shopping center. As you get farther from Leningradskii Shosse, the noise of traffic dies down and you feel you are in a quiet neighborhood.
I was walking down a narrow street boarded on the left by an 8ft cast concrete wall, and on the right by a low apartment building. When I was a child I used to sometimes leaf through National Geographic, and would sometimes encounter pictures of Soviet citizens. My image from that time of a resident of the USSR was that of an old man, quite small but not unhealthy, very thick horn-rimmed glasses, gold teeth, and simple, slightly dirty clothes. I spotted just such an old man standing on the other side of the road. He looked very Soviet, and I must have seemed very interesting to him because he stared at me as I walked past, in a completely unthreatening, curious way. As I continued walking, I turned my head to look at him longer, and was about to regret his disappearance from my field of vision when he unexpectedly called out in Russian "English language, yes?" in a friendly way.
Baffled as to how he knew, and glad to have been presented with an excuse to talk to him, I crossed the street and we began to talk. He asked if I was studying English, and I said no, I am an English teacher. He pointed around him and said that "here there is no civilization". This is a statement I have heard in the past from a few self-loathing Russians of various generations. A 21 year old student working in a big international oil firm once told me, "There is no civilization here. People like to call this civilization, but it isn't." On another occasion, while marvelling at what I mistakenly thought was My First Dead Bum Laying On The Street, I stopped some passersby and asked them what I should make of the situation and they said that "This is not civilization. There is no civilization here."
Back to our old man, though. He continued his speech, commenting that many come from the West to give Russians their civilization, and that Westerners want to acquire civilization because they don't have any. At first I was keenly aware of the limits of my Russian and struggled to keep track of what he was saying, but when I gathered that there was nothing of value in it all, i relaxed a bit and asked how he knew I was American. He pointed at me and sharply reminded me that I had told him I was American; he then added that in America the Chinese had built our railroads, and that these days the Mexicans build our houses. His mind maybe was disintegrating, but this was well-read and informed fellow. At this point three taller scruffy young men with bleached blonde hair and wearing cheap white track suits sauntered past, each of them carrying liter cans of cheap, sweet swill. One of them called out something to the old man, who in turn suggested that he go and sober up. My worry that one of them would return was confirmed as one of them looked back and swaggered up to the much smaller old man, and, addressing him informally while looking down at him, demanded his glasses.
I knew what to do, and knew it was a bad idea. The last time I made somebody piss blood was the third grade and I wound up getting pounded by the other kids. I reflected that I probably wouldn't hit the mark, and by way of justification for my inaction considered that it wasn't my business.
In the midst of these reflections I saw the old man pull a can out of his pocket and shove the can in the street tough's face. Before I knew what was happening, the can gasped a stripe of copper onto the kid's. The old man shot several times while the kid turned and ran, his left eye completely full of mace. He collapsed in the middle of the street, and the old man began savagely kicking the kid in the back. A Soviet shitbox pulled up and the horn gave a jarringly cheery honk; this is Moscow and everyone is always hurrying, there is no time for anything and everyone is permanently in everyone else's way. The car rolled past lickety split, and then the old man sat down on the kid and shot his eyeball full of mace again.
People were yelling, "Father, that's enough!"" What's happening? Why is he doing that?" While I was explaining the situation the old man said he was gonna get out his pistol and start shooting. I have lived here almost two years, and just knew that wasn't going to happen, and it didn't- the old guy just walked down the street like Charlie Chaplain, yelling again and again about his pistol. I considered approaching him and asking him out to lunch, but was afraid he was not in a state to distinguish between friend and foe.
I had retreated some, and to get to Anya's I had to walk past the kid laying on the ground, and instead attempted a detour which resulted in me getting slightly lost. Finally I retraced my steps and about 30 minutes later walked past the kid, who was sitting on a low concrete pillar in a corner, his face completely welted and swollen and unrecognizable apart from the remains of copper ink of the mace. I wonder if he understood that he had gotten what he deserved.