The night kiosk/ Romanian scenery 4

A night kiosk is an essential part of any self-respecting society. Everybody has experienced the late-night urges to buy a pack of cigarettes, a bottle of beer, or some snacks. Where I live now, kiosks are non-existent and it bothers me more than most things do. Where I lived the better part of my life however – yes, that transylvanian generic town from my other stories – was abundant in kiosks. Most of them were modular boxes of metal with some old, cheap, washed-down signs. They were, and still are, almost exclusively locate at some street corner, or any other corner. For this reason most of us used to call them corner-kiosks. My story is about one if these corner-kiosks.

Like many of the memorable events – weird events – in my life this one also involves the presence of my cousin. This story is however also the perfect ocasion to introduce a new character, Kiki. He is the kind of person that has no well defined characteristics. You can look at him and be utterly confused about his nationality, his music preferences, his intelectual interests, his fitness, his age, and so on. Kiki does have a particular attribute though, one that nobody else shares. He can imitate to perfection the sound that wales make, although he never saw or heard a wale. It all came from his ontological flexibility, his ability to navigate the different forms of life.

Well Kiki and my cousin – who both lived in a non-generic, beautiful and vibrant transylvanian city – came to visit me in my hometown. It was a special event, a big graduation party for my highschool. Such parties were usually the excuse to go to clubs in big, enormous herds and pretend to be social. The parties were not restricted to high-schoolers. Everybody was welcome. The tradition was to start drinking at home, get a bit tipsy and then head for the club. On the way to the club people continued to get tipsy so that they don’t consume anything in the actual club – we were all poor.

Me, my cousin, and Kiki are men of tradition. We started drinking a few beers at my place, telling dumb jokes, and listening to wale sounds. Another distinct quality of Kiki was that he was the first one of us to read Kant. So most nights out were about Kiki’s obsession with Kant. Me and my cousin normally reacted violently to his speeches about phenomena and things in themselves. The night in question was no exception. After getting bored about Kant we decided to head for the club. Keeping with tradition we decided to buy a bottle of wine on the road.

I led my two guests to a corner kiosk near the Italian Quarter. No Italians actually lived there, but the Romanian collective imaginary associated all illegal activities with the general concept of mafia. The Italian Quarter was thus a region of my hometown in which law accepted all kind of variations.

It was just passed midnight. As we approached the kiosk we see two men posted at the small, metal entrance, leaning against the instable walls of the kiosk, smoking. This was an odd sight. Kiosks are normally not guarded by big, intimidating men. They are usually managed by some bored neighbourhood lady. We payed little attention to this peculiar detail. We were tipsy on beers, wale sounds, and Kant. We were also young and stupid.

As we get closer, one of the two men turns his head towards the door of the kiosk, looks inside and says to the person inside:

“somebody is coming!”

“tell them it’s closed”, a voice says from inside.

He conforms and tells us:

“It’s closed”

We were young and stupid and wanted our bottle of wine.

“No it’s not, there’s somebody inside” one of us says, while we try to push our way in together.

“Don’t let them in!” the voice from inside says in a quite authoritative manner.

The two men try to block the entrance and we try to shove our bodies inside. My cousin made use of his imposing belly and pushed one of them out of the way. A general push and shove ensues in which none of us actually knew what was happening. There was no actual violence, just visible confusion and a weird caroussel of bodies in the night, at a street corner-kiosk. Our movements were completely enthropic and resembled a kind of ritualic dance. Kiki might have made a few wale noises, I can’t remember exactly.

“What the hell do you want?” the angry voice from inside screams in a desperate attempt to stop the whole spectacle.

“A bottle of wine”

“Here!!” The voices suddenly grows an arm that extends itself outside of the kiosk to hand us the desired bottle.

“How much?” we ask.

The two men outside and the voice inside collapse in a short, but excrutiating moment of despair. They look at each other in silence and birth gestures of lack of knowledge and orientation. Out of this formless state of communication, the voice inside – who was obviously the boss at this point – exclaims in a blissful and spontanous discovery of mercantile value:

“2 lei! (that’s about 50 cents)”

We gladly pay and go on our way. We were walking on a pedestrian bridge connecting the formerly industrial neighbourhood where I lived to the old center. The bridge was relatively new – about 30 years old. It was built after the old bridge collapsed during a flood. The concrete remains of the old bridge were still visible under the new, metal bridge. At the and of the bridge lied an abandoned factory, populated by street dogs that were already howling anticipating our arrival.

The factory was not visible from the bridge though. The only sight available to our alcohool imbued eyes were the towers of the old town engulfed in a warm light. The outskirts of the old town were covered in shadow, betraying nevertheless the brutal shapes of old factories. After about ten minutes and a few sips of wine, with the old town in the near horizon and the old industrial guardians in shadows, one of us asks:

“how much does this wine normally cost?”

“about 20 lei” another answers.

We look at each other and replay the whole scenario in our minds. We somehow knew that something was weird, but none of us could figure it out.

“Was that a robbery?” My cousin asks. “Did we buy wine from robbers?”

“Who cares, it was cheap” concludes Kiki.