This is fiction any correlation to real persons alive or deceased is purely happenstance. The characters are fiction.
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It was a hot August Friday night in old Sacramento several years ago. There was no wind blowing across the river and there was no relief from the sweltering heat common this time of the year. The sun was setting and people were coming out of the air conditioning to do chores of necessity that previously were intolerable due to the scorching sun. Sweat trickled down my neck from the still intense heat. I walked down the tree lined streets as heat radiated from the sun baked pavement. I slowly made my way to my favorite watering hole the River Town Saloon. It was a campy tourist trap establishment complete with carved western characters posed as pretend patrons. I wasn't really a regular, no one really was, but it was the bar I usually ventured too. It was a fun place for me as everyone was a tourist and since I was a recent immigrant from Slovakia. I liked not being the only foreigner. I was in my early twenties when I had recently left my home and mother country and ventured to California. There were a lot of European tourists likely to be at The River Town Saloon and they didn't bust my chops about my accent. I did not yet own a car and this bar was walking distance from the run down studio apartment I rented off J Street. The most beautiful girl I knew tended bar there, perhaps the most important reason I kept going there.
I was a brick mason back home in Kosice and worked in that trade here as well, for my boss Foka, a Russian immigrant that was previously connected to the Bratva. He had found enough money to establish a masonry contractor business here in Sacramento. He did not pay well but he treated me fairly. He was happy that I spoke Russian as my second language. Speaking Russian was almost a necessity in former Soviet Union states. We would sing ancient Russian songs that predated the Lenin revolution and were illegal to sing before the breakup. They voiced the heartache of the serfs under the Czar and were just as true for the Soviet comrade as well. Thus singing them could get you arrested. We reveled being able to sing anything we wanted. We even sang God Bless America in English, although we did not know all the words. Singing makes the day go faster. I was thankful to be free from that state run mediocrity. His sister Domna was a bartender at the River Town Saloon and was the stunning beauty I mentioned earlier. Her flowing blond hair framed her slender angelic face, the ideal vision of loveliness. She had classic Russian good looks. I was smitten by her. She was pushy and demanding; she would try to tell everyone what to do. Here in individualist California her tactics were less than successful. I found this amusing. She would grow angry and swear in Russian when she did not get her way. I thought she would be absolutely perfect if she were a lot quieter. Women should not be so loud. Demure women are much more preferable. Her loveliness kept me coming back, however. She was truly a daughter of the Gods. This Saloon had once been a brothel in the 1860's Johanna Eaglet had established it. Women did not own many businesses in Slovakia, especially in the 1860s. Men are men back in Slovakia. Domna rented a flat above the bar and I hoped if I played my cards right I might get to see inside it.
I reached the street of the Saloon; just two blocks back from the river. A multitude of tourists were walking down the boardwalk sidewalks. Most had children in tow and probably were there to go to the nearby museums and tourist shops. The used record shop off the alley was well known and some tourists turned heading there. The ice creamery down the block had a line out the door. A woman with a stroller almost knocked me over in her haste to catch her errant toddler before he ventured in the street. The husband, apparently exhausted, was not paying attention and now the mother was trying to mind both the baby in the stroller and the toddler. Cars were backed up on the narrow streets. The horse drawn buggies had a way of bottling things up as passengers in the hacks were drawn slowly down the far right hand side of the street. Cars waited behind them, the drivers quite frustrated. Patience is in short supply here in California. I could smell the fresh horse dung the draft horses had left behind. I found the clopping sound of the horse hooves on pavement comforting. This was peak season for old Sacramento and the place was extremely busy. All the shop shelves were full of touristy kitsch and this seemed like an abundance of freedom to me. Back home even necessities were out of stock.
I walked into the saloon past the carved miner on the bench out front, trying to see where Domna was working. I scanned the room length bar. A young newlywed tourist couple sat almost atop on another in a booth. Her wedding ring was sparkling new and she was holding it out as if she wanted it noticed. Another couple danced to some unknown vintage piano music, obviously very much in love. Domna was in the center of the bar in front of the room length mirror and endless bottles. It looked like I had walked back in time to the old west. The mirror behind the bar had distorted with age. There was a player piano playing an unknown 19 century tune in the corner. There were more kinds of alcohol behind that bar than in all of Slovakia. She was wearing a low cut and very sexy saloon girl dress encased in a red corset that matched the old west motif. The skirt of the dress was red. The fluffy white blouse framed her ample bosom nicely. She wore period correct black lace up boots. I sat down and she called me a loser in Russian. I called her a floosy in Russian right back.
"It is good to see you too," I said.
"Come to waste some of the money my brother overpays you, Jozef?" she said. Jozef is my name. She poured me a glass of Vodka.
"I earned all of this money," I said.
As I tried to see farther down her top. If she puts such beauty on display I will look, of course.
"Sure as you sing like a choir girl as you work," she said.
"Your brother teaches me the words," I said.
"Like two choir girls then," she said.
"You mean like free hard working men," I said.
"Hard working men who wear panties," She said in Russian.
"I do not and I doubt your brother does either," I said back in Russian.
"I caught Foka in my panties when he was sixteen and I was fourteen," Domna said.
"Really you did?" I asked.
It was sometimes hard to tell when she was joking.
"Maybe, but perhaps not," Domna said.
I never knew how to read her.
A huge muscular tourist walked up to us and introduced himself to us in Russian. He had a bandage around the palm of his right hand.
"My name is Vadim," he said. I blushed as Domna had embarrassed me by wrongly accusing me of being a panty boy. I was sure he had heard her. The conversation continued in Russian.
"I am Domna and this sissy is Jozef," Domna said. My face felt even hotter, but the humiliation was starting to arouse me. She smiled, obviously enjoying tormenting me.
"I am not a sissy and I don't wear panties," I said.
"It is okay, I understand that is normal here in California," Vadim said joining the fun.
"Don't worry the KGB won't arrest you here Jozef," Domna said laughing.
"Maybe you can find a wealthy husband Jozef," Vadim said laughing as well.
"I am not gay," I said.
"Me thinks you protest too much," Vadim said quoting a Russian translation of Shakespeare.
"How do you know if you never tried it," Domna said.
"I don't want to try it, so I am not gay," I said.
This continued for a few minutes until they had had their fun. Finally they grew bored with it so they let that dog sleep.
"Where in Russia are you from Domna," Vadim asked.
"Veliky Novgorod right next to the river," Domna said.
"A most beautiful place that fits your accent, I am from Volgograd," Vadim said.
"I am from Kosice in Slovakia," I said.
"The way you butcher the tongue, I knew you were not Russian," Vadim said.
"My Russian is pretty good for a second tongue," I said.
"I know you speak Russian better than I speak Slovak," Domna said.
She stood up for me?
"No bruising of your balls, I will buy you a drink," Vadim said. Which is a Slav expression meaning no hard feelings?
I was surprised Vadim would know that and also wondered if he was still calling me a man without balls. I hoped not because Vadim was much too big to fight.
Domna poured two more Vodka's. When Vadim reached for his drink, his sleeve rode up revealing his Brotherhood (Bratva) tattoo.
Bratva is the Russian Mafia. He must know Foka I thought.
"Are you friends with Foka," I asked.
"More like we were both formerly associates," Vadim said.
An associate is like mafia errand boy.
"I came to get payment for Foka's loan. I have been promoted to captain. My flight leaves at 2:00am," Vadim said.
His mafia job is now more important; he had raised a level.
"Why didn't Foka, my brother, wire the money?" Domna asked.
