He was one of the ’Murphy’s’ regulars although
Nobody talked to him or knew his name
He was a huge guy: when you looked at him all you saw was
A true mountain of fat, greasy hair, cannonball of the head
Elephantine tights, bushy brows and square glasses
Always hanging on a sweaty bridge of his nose
At a wrong angle
It was believed that
He taught History at some private English language school
(Although he nether spoke nor looked like a teacher) and
He was from either Massachusetts or maybe Long Island
It was a mystery why he lived in Prague
He seemed to have no friends
He always sat on a bar stool with his back
Turned to the crowd, seldom opening his mouth
Except when he decided to
To speak to a chosen few on rare occasions when
He was particularly drunk. He also had
A reputation of gays’ hater
Once I heard him lamenting to a barman
‘These sodomites all should be burned
Or gassed in gas chambers! They are an insult to God
And the society!’
I had never talked to him but one day
He climbed on a stool next to me and barked
‘And you! Where are you from?’
‘San Francisco, California.’
‘Don’t tell me you are one of them sodomites.’
‘No.’
‘Good. But you are not an American. You speak
With an accent. Where your accent is from?’
‘It is Russian.’
‘Damn! Are you a commie? All Russians are either commies or
Mafiosi. No wonder you stay in Prague. They are bad enough too,
Damn pinkos bastards! You should live in States where
The real people are, where everyone is friendly, helpful and God fearing!’
I listened to him with a morbid fascination, neither turning away nor replying
Later on one of my drinking pals said
‘We once played a nice joke on this fat weirdo.
A guy approached him and introduced himself as a gay then
Put an arm around fatso’s shoulder. Too bad you had never seen
The fat guy’s reaction. He jumped from his stool,
Ran into a toilet and started to puke right on a floor.
When he returned, he smashed his glass then
He tried to break some bottles
Behind the bar, crying and screaming at the same time until
Martin the barmen managed to throw him out. The guys
Heard rumors that he had had an asthma attack after.
All in all it was a helluva show!’
I said, ‘Jeez, the guy is crazy. How come they let him
To come here?’
‘Well I don’t know but since then nobody
Tried to bother him any more. I mean, everybody
Knows by now he’s just a loony, man.’
I saw the fat guy several times after that then
He stopped coming to ‘Murphy’ altogether
Perhaps he died or flew back home.
In any case
It was not a great loss for anybody.