Author: Dane Lowell
Submitted by: redadmin

Chapt. 18 - 1050 Words
Columns :: Nightmare life of the boy who has everything

MOSCOW, Oct. 19, 2003 -- Comments:   Ratings:

Vlad brings me candy
What his life is really like



MOSCOW, Oct. 19, 2003 -- Last Sunday was Teacher’s day in Moscow.

I didn’t know it until today, when Volodya – my Turkish “Guess-What” souvenir from four years ago -- arrived for his third lesson and pulled out of his bag a box of candy from the Krasnaya Oktyaberskaya – “Red October” -- factory, Moscow’s oldest and most venerable candy manufacturer .

“Congratulations,” he beamed.

Maybe I’ll never eat the candy. Maybe I’ll just frame the box and hang it on the wall and save it till the chocolate melts, and lick it off the wallpaper.

But maybe not.

Every time I see him, I think, “Jesus, what a gorgeous creature: tall, blond, blue-eyed, toothpaste-ad smile, a body to die for, ambition, and a rich father.

That lucky son of a bitch. How I’d like to be in his pants – er, shoes.

And how I’d like to scratch that little hussy’s eyes out that he’s engaged to.

But then he brings me back into focus with, “I’d like to talk about prepositions.”

“Oh, yeah? Here’s one for you: If you’ll have sex with me, I’ll give you free English lessons for the rest of your life!

“Oh, sorry, you said preposition!

But then we get down to work: on Monday, on the 4th, on Christmas Day, but at Christmas, in October, in 2003. In love, with you, on the bed, under the covers, in my wildest dreams, out of my mind, on a roll, off the wall, around the bend.

He asks a lot of questions about America: He wants to get an MBA in an American university. Is it true the average MBA’s salary is 0,000 a year? Is it true with a medical degree I still couldn’t practice medicine in America? Is it true if you don’t pass your MBA exams, you’re kicked out of school and you’ve wasted all that money?

He’s already enrolled in med school, but he’s planning to enroll in a linguistics university and become qualified as a simultaneous translator. And then to go to America to study for an MBA.

That’s a pretty big plateful for one Russian boy – even an intelligent, talented, extraordinarily beautiful Russian boy..


After the lesson, he suggested we have a cup of tea and chat.

He doesn’t really want to go to med school, he said, but his father, who is what Valodya calls a “drug designer” who creates new medical potions for the pharmaceutical industry, insists on it. He wants Valodya to follow in his footsteps and be a pharmaceutical scientist.

The old man, Valodya says, fancies himself as a “capitalist,” and tries to act like one.

He’s very controlling and domineering – and cruel and sadistic!

Apparently he’s seen too many American James Cagney movies about the tough-minded, no-nonsense, whip-cracking capitalist titans of industry.

If Valodya sticks to his plan to enroll in a linquistics university and ends up not working in the pharmaceutical field, his father told him he will have to repay every cent of what he has paid for Valodya’s education.

His father yells, accuses, bitches, and threatens.

Valodya wants to get married – not just because he loves the girl, but also to get away from the old bastard’s tyrannizing. In Russia, where apartments are still scarce and expensive, it’s SOP for young married couples to live with one set of parents or the other – sometimes for years. Sometimes till the parents die of old age. It’s not unusual for three generations to be living in a two-room apartment.

But the would-be American capitalist told Valodya that if he gets married, he’ll have to rent his own apartment. “You can’t live here with us,” although he himself just bought an expensive second apartment. Where will the money come from? “You’ll have to earn it yourself.”

“But when you and Mom got married, you continued to live with your parents.”

“That was in the communist era. We’re living in the age of capitalism now. Capitalists do things differently.”


So Valodya has no choice but to continue to live under the thumb of this sadistic tyrant.

Competition is fierce in his university, and it’s common for students to hire tutors to prepare them for exams. His father refuses to pay for a tutor. “If you want a tutor, you’ll have to work and pay for it yourself.”

But he’s already a full-time med student, plans to enroll part-time in a linguistics university, and is taking private English lessons. He literally runs from class to class. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for working. And how much can a student earn working part-time?

Even a young full-time worker often earns an absurdly small sum of money. Anton, for instance, working full time as a merchandiser makes only 0 a month. Vlad couldn’t possibly earn enough money – even if he had the time – to pay for a tutor, much less for an apartment.

The tough-minded nouveau capitalist is obviously setting impossible hurdles for his son. Why?

You can’t help but be reminded of Col. Fitz, the hard-as-nails Marine colonel and closet pansy in “American Beauty.” Are there some weird family sexual dynamics at work here?

I think the bastard needs a shrink.

Valodya’s mother works at a school and slips him the money he needs to pay for his English classes and other urgent demands. “My mother is wonderful,” he says.

Obviously she is.

As he tells me this, I want to hold this beautiful boy in my arms – not to ravish him, as I had wanted to a couple of hours earlier, but to comfort him.

This kid with everything going for him, this “lucky son of a bitch” in whose pants – ugh, shoes -- I’ve yearned to be in is in fact plodding a miserable and almost impossible treadmill. It’s as if his father is doing everything to make it impossible for Valodya to succeed – at anything.

He is making Valodya’s daily life a living, breathing hell.

If I were the rich American I’m often accused of being (every American is automatically a rich American -–again, too many movies), I’d give him the money to rent his own apartment.

But I’m not. The only thing I can do is quit charging him for his English lessons.

I won’t even mention sex.