Smoking in Prague

I found myself one afternoon high on methamphetamine and talking to a very serious, slightly tearful, but suicidal meth addict at his spacious apartment in the centre of Prague.

Peter had a straight posture and straight gaze.  He was very handsome, tall, and friendly.  His face was golden and suffering.

‘My cock doesn’t shrink,’ he told me.  His English was perfect with only a hint of a Czech accent.  ‘This shit doesn’t affect me anymore.  I can sleep to.’  He went forward over the the table to snort another line and as he did he said, ‘Do you know, not long ago in Prague we used to work for bread.’

We took his terrier for a walk around the streets.  He loved that dog, it was his only friend.  We drifted through crowds of tourists in a surreal cotton-wrapped world.  It struck me how odd it was in this beautiful and historic city that two worlds could collide and never know it.  Prague is known as the Golden City of Spires.  It’s a fusion of Romanesque and Gothic architecture, of Renaissance and Baroque.  The buildings and streets are simply beautiful.  A fairytale.

As we walked along a cobbled road, narrowed by imposing architecture, Peter became silent and brooding.  ‘Do you know the translation of Prague?’ he asked.

We came to a stop so the terror could cock his leg in the corner.  I leant against a wall and lit a cigarette.  ‘I don’t believe I do.’

‘It means the “gateway between Heaven and Hell.”’.

Despite having met me for the first time only hours before, Peter had found in me a man who would listen.  He had bought me a whiskey at a strip joint near Wenceslas Square because, as he said at the time, there was “something profound” about my face.

When we finished walking the dog we made our way back to the apartment to snort more meth.  Yellow lines on the table.  Peter launched into a tired and sad monologue about his ex-girlfriend, his family, his life.  The magic faded.

‘My family are doctors,’ he went on.  ‘They want me to be a doctor.  My ex-girlfriend, I loved her but she wouldn’t take responsibility for things, she wouldn’t clean or cook.’  As he talked I felt a great burden weigh down upon me.  I began to resent him.  ‘I live here but I cannot afford the rent and will be out on the street.  I can’t work.  And you know what?  I don’t care.  I don’t care anymore.’

He began to leaf through photographs he kept in a shoe box.  There were hundreds of them, photos of his friends and family, his ex-girlfriend.  It was another life.  His eyes were distant as he retrieved each one from the box.  He described each scene with detachment, spittle forming at the corners of his mouth.  The situation was beginning to unnerve me.

As he spoke it seemed his brain was no longer connected to the things he was saying.  ‘You know there are a little devils on the ground that lead to my house,’ he said.

After some time I anxiously made my excuses.  At the door I stopped, reached into my bag and pulled free Baudrillard’s The Perfect Crime.  ‘Take this,’ I said.

Peter held it, bemused.  Neither of us knew why I’d griven it to him.  With hindsight I guess I felt the need to impart something before leaving – a gift, a word, an idea.  I knew I’d never see him again.

I walked out into the evening relieved to be free.  I was so high that that the red and orange lights of the city were hurting my eyes.  The world was a strange rock.  My head felt like a stadium, my brain floodlit.  I passed a nun in a grey habit and with a cross clutched to her chest in both hands.  There are countless convents in Prague.  I don’t know why but as we passed each other I tried to meet her gaze but she looked through me like I didn’t exist.

On a corner near Wenceslas Square a Czech man accosted me.  ‘I take you to titty bar!  Nice bar.  Good bar.  Nice pussy.’  He slapped the back of his hand into the open palm of the other.  ‘You bang, bang yes?’

‘I ain’t a tourist, mate.’ I said trying to walk him off.

‘What, you don’t like pussy?’

‘I like pussy,’ I said.  ‘I just ain’t a tourist.’

It was nine-thirty in the evening and I’d been awake all weekend, high for thirty-six hours straight, no sleep, just wired.  My eyes were sore, my jaw ached, and my teeth buzzed.  I felt dirty and dark inside . I slipped through the Metro like a ghost and arrived ten minutes later at Anděl Station.  Luckily the place I was renting was only a minute away from the exit.  As I came up from the underground and made my way towards Radlická street I noticed on the pavement a print of a devil holding a fork.  On the ground a few feet ahead was another identical devil.  Then another.  And another, all of them heading towards the courtyard of my house and stopping just short of the iron gate.  Little devils on the ground.

I got into bed and slept a broken, difficult sleep with my teeth grinding like ice in a glass.  When at last I emerged from slumber a day or two later I flushed the last of my meth and coke down the toilet.

I don’t know where Peter is today, or if he’s even alive.  But since then I’ve bought another copy of the The Perfect Crime.