The Subject

Part of the attraction of ESL as a profession is that it makes few demands on its practitioners. One corollary is that while the contracts stipulate a formal dress code, the reality is jeans and a collared shirt.
The Subject made several appearances in my peripheral field of vision in the summer of 2007, always wearing a slightly baggy grey suit, well-ironed shirt, monochrome tie, and large, slim-lensed eighties gold-rimmed glasses. His rear-facing, faintly wavy, Moses-silver shock's retreat, which took the form of two spikes reaching halfway to his pate, had been stopped, probably for good. His weight was at a robust, achieving minimum, and he was forever entering my field of vision in definitive strides, or sometimes lingering in it, measuredly leafing through papers which along with his books he carried in a cardboard accordion inside his ancient briefcase. He had a noble, burnished forehead, a wrenched Roman nose, and a recessive chin. I put his age at a distinguished 48. He seemed too serious.
"That's a nice suit."
He opened his mouth all the way, slowly, and unfurled his tongue, arching it over his lower teeth, his eyes become indignant behind his glasses, and said in a heavy Scottish accent, "Do you believe in your own word?"
I was just being jocular, and sensed an ambush. "Well, yes."
"You signed an employment contract. Did you read it?"
"Well, yes..."
"Wearing a suit is one of the promises you made, you twat", he said triumphantly, tilted his head to one side, and walked out of the room.
After my anger subsided, I vowed to apologize to this man, who had misunderstood me completely.

Claptrap 3

I had slept quite badly, so I went in the kitchen with my bleeding foot, boiled some water and made some extra strong tea, got my dictionary and insurance certificate and then limped out the door. Claptrap had already fallen back asleep and didn't say goodbye. I had no idea where to find a hospital, so I went out to the street and started asking passersby; one of them told me to dial 112, which I did and the operator told me where to catch a bus. My foot was starting to ache some and the tea made me calm, I was resigned to the pain, which would get worse, and I started to look forward to the bus ride, the new words, seeing what Russian hospitals were all about, and above all, a bad story.
The bus drove down a sidestreet parallel to the main road and leading to Andrei and Julia's apartment, then to a large stand of birches, and a hospital hat looked like it had been whitewashed goldenrod. The receptionist sent me to an office where I registered, but they had never seen my type of certificate before, and did not know where I was registered because my landlord had refused to give me the proper documentation in order to not pay taxes. I sat down in the hallway and waited, and when it was my turn they asked me what happened, gave me a tetanus shot, dumped alcohol on my foot, and then aggressively and thoroughly swabbed out the inside of the wound; the elderly nurse smirked when I yelled. I guess Russians don't yell when they're in pain. I was not officially registered anywhere and had signed nothing, which meant they were treating me for free, so I gave her 100 rubles, which she declined.
I called my students to let them know what was happening, rescheduled the classes that could be, and started a tally of the ones I had to miss, and how much this was costing me. Apart from sink, I came immediately to a figure of 4000 rubles; plus, every two days I would have to get my foot rebandanged, which would mean missing more classes.
I taught my afternoon classes, and at the end of the day got in a taxi and got my foot rebandaged at another hospital, which again asked where I was registered. I explained everything and they just did their job and refused payment. When I got home Claptrap was absent, which was a relief. The entire day I had had no desire to speak to him.

Who is Claptrap? Part 2

April 2008
I am living alone in a two-room apartment. I earn enough money to pay the entire rent myself, but I have 20,000 dollars in college loans, and paying for two rooms is a waste of money. I need to find a reliable roommate, but among my circle of acquaintances only Charlemagne is looking for a flat. My landlady, who is trying to pay her daughter's way through university, is greedy and honest. She is acquainted with the British owner of a language school I worked at previously, so she knows what an English teacher in Moscow gets paid, and charges a correspondingly high rent. She knows that I cannot pay the rent alone indefinitely, that I trust no one and don't want to move, and that if she finds another foreigner to pay for the empty room, she will have a steady stream of income.
June 2008
I decide to go to walk the length of the Pyrenees, but don't want to lose the apartment, so someone needs to rent at the very least one of the rooms. Charlemagne is getting threatening letters of two types: one is from Home Credit Bank, is addressed to the absentee landlady, and threatens to repossess her apartment if she does not make her payments; the other type is from the landlady and threatens Charlemagne with expulsion if he does not pay for imaginary damage he has caused- scratched floor, water damage, broken pipes... So I invite Charlemagne to live in the flat while I am hiking the Pyrenees- he pays the rent and I do not lose the apartment while I am living my dream. Afterwards, Charles is to leave and find another place to stay.
August 2008
I come back from France, and find out that Charlemagne never moved in to the Soviet-style apartment, because "I am not a russianigger, and can have nothing less than European decor." He never had any intention of informing me of this. It is by the grace of God that my landlord and landlady have not decided to simply throw me out. I need to find a roommate. I begin searching by posting ads in expat sites; the only taker is a Canadian omnisexual who has orgies once per week. "Don't worry, after three or four hours, we're all worn out, and I make them leave."
Claptrap has finally broken up with his girlfriend, and is looking for a place to live. He is the only taker. I ask him several questions:
"Do you drink?"
"I like to have a good time."
"Will it be a problem? Because if it is, I will throw you out."
"Don't worry, I can keep it under control."
"Do you smoke?"
"Yes."
"Ok, fine, can you do it outside or on the balcony?"
"Yeah, it's no big deal."
"Are you loud?"
"Not particularly. I don't like loud music or anything like that."
"I know you get prostitutes sometimes. You can do that and it's fine with me as long as it you do it away from the apartment."
"Yeah, that's pretty dangerous bringing them home, it's not really my style."
"You have to understand that if you bring them home I will throw you out."
"Of course, we'll shake on it."
"Ok. The rules are clear then. Let's shake."
"Deal."

Claptrap's First Sunday at the Flat
Tamara spent Saturday night at my place, and the next day at around 10 we wake up to the sound of blaring country music. Claptrap is in the kitchen, sitting on the windowsill on the fourth floor with all four panes facing outwards. Liter cans of Tuborg Green, and 33cl of American Busweiser, are lined up on the sink. His state does not bely drunkenness, though- he is exuberant, ranting about freedom, and debt, how he needs to get back home to Michigan and do some huntin' 'n' fishin', he is screaming yee-haw, ninja cowboy. I tell him he should go to sleep, and in an ecstasy he tells me we are going to win in Iraq, after all, and that Cousin Bubba sells spring retrofits to make the M60s fully automatic.
The M60 is a US-produced machinegun which is a direct descendant of the Wehrmacht's MG42, which is in service to this day with the Bundeswehr, often with the swastika crossed out; its rechristenment as MG3 is a figleaf from behind which the outloud nickname Hitler Saw crimsonly juts. The American M60 is small enough to be carried by one man, but powerful enough to be mounted to the open doors of transport helicopters landing in the jungle.
Tamara is visibly confused but amused by this behavior, as Claptrap is acting like a complete child. Periods when I try to impart reason to beings not susceptible to it are an unhappy refrain in my life, and a naive desire to grasp and resculpt this particular black hole in a shape corresponding to a hologram of myself begins to accrete.

Incident One: Early October 2008
I spent a week working hard at making my students speak better English, eating between classes at the 45 Seconds Crepe Shop, racing into the school to keep in touch with my parents, and earning good money. Then, after that week was over, I did the laundry and the dishes, cleaned my room, went with Tamara to the park. Then a new week started, and on Tuesday I come home from work and go to sleep. At midnight, around one hour after going to sleep, I hear the door to the stairwell being unlocked from outside, then cautious footsteps, and the clinking of a multitude of glass bottles. The door closes and locks, the footsteps lead past my room and then into his. I hear a hiss as one of the bottles opens. Twenty minutes later, I hear another hiss, and twenty minutes later another one, and so on. I fall into an uneasy sleep. At around 2am, I hear the heavy thud of a man falling to the floor, shattering plates, then abject anthropoid moans. I am cheap and never do anything that costs me money, so I laugh a bit thinking about how we will pay for this.
Around 4am I hear a stentorian shattering originating from the bathroom, followed by a prolonged groan evoking dull pain. I again go back to sleep.
At 645am, I wake up and go to brush my teeth and take a shower. I open the door and see the ceramic sink lying shattered on the floor; there are shards everywhere. I feel an anger well up inside me, but I have to make it to my first class so I decided to have the discussion later. I take off my clothes, take a quick shower, get dressed, and as I am walking out in bare feet, I step with the full weight of my body on the jagged edge of porcelain, which slices through the thick skin on the outside of the ball of my foot next to the right big toe. A large quantity of blood exits my foot, and I run into the kitchen to find a paper towel to stop the bleeding. The kitchen is littered with juice cartons and around a dozen empty bottles of beer. I can't find anything to stop the bleeding, so I take a t-shirt and mop the blood up; there is a considerable amount of blood on the floor.
The rage overtakes me and I limp and stride, limp and stride, limp and stride, and then surge righteously through the chocolate-colored French doors to Claptrap's room. I scream at him to get dressed and get the fuck out of the apartment. He is laying in bed on his side as if he were crouching and shielding himself from the rain with a thick blanket, from beneath which he mutters aloud that I should get out of his house. I scream again, and directly to my right on the couch next to me I see someone stirring from beneath another blanket. It is Dana, an American teacher from central Michigan. She has passed out as well; I look around the room and see several more beer bottles on the table in the middle of the room. I keep screaming at him, this time in German, which he takes as proof that we have something in common. I go to my room and take an old shoe, completely loosen the laces and put my foot in, find the keys, and walk outside.

Who is Claptrap?

I'd aleady known of Claptrap as the guy who'd been beaten up and had his computer stolen outside The Real McCoy, a bar and dance club where a Jewish friend of mine had been offered manual sex by a fascist, when I first met him in person in February 2008 at an early afternoon teacher training session at the school agency we both worked at.
Memory 1
He had short black hair that was beginning to thin a bit, a solid, compact paunch, active black eyes in a childish face with a perfectly diagonal knick on the forehead, and an alert posture. He's standing in the newly remodelled low-ceiling auditorium, which still had a little plaster dust on the floor, holding a half-liter can of beer, and engaging his own worry more than anyone else about how he'd saved hundreds of dollars by buying 30 dress shirts with his credit card after his flight home to New Mexico that Christmas. I was having a beer, too and we casually exchanged numbers.
Memory 2
I'm walking up a cobblestoned street, it's refreshingly cool, the sun is back out, and a gust has driven the diesel fumes away. It's the mid-afternoon lull in classes when I normally swing into the 45 Seconds Crepeshop and put away two crepes with cheese, pickles, and mushrooms in cream sauce before hurrying down to the school to read my emails. Claptrap is calling and telling me about how the woman in the pornographic magazine he bought is down with V.D., which segues into a talk about boundless opportunities, how we should open a chain of schools starting in Vladivostok, how he spent 200 dollars on sunglasses, how we wants to become the Russian importer of dried New Mexico hot peppers. It feels intractable, so I tell him it's time to eat, and instead of saying goodbye he keeps talking, so I just tell him I am in a hurry, hang up and go in to eat.
Memory 3
Claptrap has offered to help me do my taxes. The preconditions for him helping me are that I bring a couple drinks and that I come to his place- he lives in the northeast of Moscow, whereas I live in the northwest. It's April 13th around 7pm. He arrives at the exit to the station in a taxi, and we spend 25 minutes plodding through traffic to get to his high-rise, which has a priveleged view onto a railway depot scrapyard. I have a bag with two bottles of beer and one bottle of mead, which he isn't familiar with. We go out on the balcony and he starts to smoke, and opens the first beer. Although he's American, he insists on speaking German with me, introducing himself and telling me about the MBA he'd received in Germany. He tries the mead, likes it quite a bit and we share it. He complains about his girlfriend, who refuses to have sex with him after coming home late from a job she is too dedicated to, and about the salary at the school we work at. Claptrap has an MBA, so he deserves more. He goes to the refrigerator, pulls out a clear soft bag full of dried red peppers, and begins telling me again about the opportunity of selling them in Russia. He opens the fridge again and opens a bottle of dry red wine, he takes around twice as much as me, and as the night goes on, we still have done no taxes and again Claptrap is complaining about how someone who has an MBA should be getting paid more by the school. Another bottle of wine is opened, and I call it quits, although I am already pretty drunk.
Claptrap continues, and begins telling me about his 80,000 dollars in debt. He says that the MBA never paid off, and that he was in debt repayment. I told him he needed to slow down a little bit, drink less, keep plugging away and in a few years the debts would be gone. He asks why he'd gotten the MBA at all then if he was not going to found a business. I am in the same situation, so I sympathize with him. Still he keeps drinking, and I start again, too, and soon we are both quite drunk, I tell him he needs to go on a long walk to clear his head, and he asks me for the 10,000 dollars he needs to do it. We agree to embark on a bicycle tour of Siberia that very summer. In a moment of drunken, wounded soul-baring, he tells me Jesus Christ is his personal Lord and Saviour. His voice tells me that this fact has made him the subject of some mockery, especially in secular Germany. He drifts back to his low salary and tells me that the school we work at can suck his dick. He repeats the phrase, asking if I understand, and tells me that his girlfriend can do the same, and that the banks can do it, too. He stops short of asking me. His eyes are now a fine pink and the distance between them seems to have shrunk, which with his ajar mouth makes his nose look thinner, and makes his face aroused, angry, intent, and idiotic; in the haze I understand that his religion will keep him away from me. It is now well past 1am when the last transport leaves, and we have done no taxes. I go to sleep on the floor at a solid distance from him.
A few hours later, the sun wakes me up. Dual headaches are stemming backwards from my eyesockets, and the sun goes right through my eyelids. Claptrap is X-shaped belly up and snoring like a sow. I don't feel like he will be getting up anytime soon, so I go for breakfast, but the fridge is empty. After a few hours, I wake him up and tell him we need to do my taxes. We turn his laptop on, and he tells me it replaced the 3500 dollar one stolen from him outside the Real McCoy. He tells me he needs to leave in forty minutes to teach a class and earn 100 dollars, but I remind him that he invited me to help me file my taxes online. Because we both live outside the US and earn less than 87,500 dollars, we are both exempt from US taxes, so the process is straightforward and soon we are finished. I am a wreck, but he seems absolutely fine and goes outside on the balcony to have a smoke. He shows me his cobalt-blue Marlboro ashtray, telling me it cost 20 dollars, theatrically/ accidentally drops it, and says he is sure it will not break. No one screams, and when I look down below I don't see anyone.
I get my things together and Claptrap takes me downstairs in the elevator. It's now late morning and the day seems like it will be gray but warm. He explains how to get back to the metro. I remember the previous evening's 25-minute ride, but I am a skinflint and reason that part of the duration resulted from the traffic jam. I am shocked to find Claptrap lives 13 minutes from the metro.
Memory 4
It's high spring and I am pissing away a free hour in the net. When the hour is up, I leave and begin making the deceptively long walk to the metro. I hear a bling from my phone- Claptrap has written that he received a bill for use of his tax program. I owe him 1000 rubles. I tell him it was his mistake, and that I will pay 500.
Over the course of several weeks he presses me lightly on the issue and finally I pay.