Behind the market as Tushinskoye is the
railway track and between the two a small garbage filled wood. After an hour’s
metro journey and faced with the reality of no public toilets to speak of in
this city, I took a quick piss there, up against a fence.
The police rolled up at the perfect moment
to catch me in the act and my headphones were not enough to enable me to make
good my escape. Pretending I hadn't seen them didn't stop the friendly hand on
the shoulder.
“What were you doing?” he asked
“Pissing” I answered, “I'm very sorry, I
couldn't find a toilet”
”Aha you're American?”
“British”
“And tell me, do people piss on the street
in Britain”
“Maybe, if they can find no toilet, but
there are more toilets there, they try not to as I tried not to”
“Come with us”
“Do I really have to? I'm very late for a
meeting and I am very sorry, I won't do it again”
But, they had that glint in their eyes, the
one that spells foreigner, ergo money. The one doing the talking was my age or
so, the quiet one about 25 or so. We rounded the corner to see a police van
standing there, a mobile office for the taking of bribes. He opened the door to
the back and told the half dozen smoking cops to get out, the young one climbed
into the front seat which was separated off by a curtain.
He took out a sheaf of papers and explained
that we would have to fill all of these in, and it might take some time. This
is the point at which I was expected to suggest we settle it ourselves, in
other words a bribe. It was the logical thing to do, it would cost me a few
dollars and I'd be away.
But something overly English in me jumped
up and thought fuck you and your supercilious extortion racket face. I called
the client said I would be late, which was no problem and then set off to Kafka
world having done so I said “ok” sat back and said do “what you have to do?”
“I'll need your documents”
“Here they are”
“There are really a lot of papers to fill
in”
“That's OK I just cancelled my meeting”
“You could just pay a fine you know”
“And you'll give a receipt yes?”
.......
“You think it's OK to piss on the street in
Russia?”
“People do it all the time, and it was a
railway siding anyway”
“And that makes it OK?”
“No, that's why I apologised and promised
not to do it again”
“And that makes it OK?”
“That’s really for you to say, being a
policeman”
“If you break the law here we can have you
sent out of Russia”
“I have a wife and two children, does
exiling a father for pissing in a railway siding seem right to you?”
“Why didn't you think of them before you
did it”
“I did think of them, then I looked for a
toilet, is there one round here?”
.......
Then he spent the next twenty minutes
filling in the forms and asking me to translate my documents for him, by this
point he's beginning to wish he'd never got involved. I'm being as awkward as
possible telling him I have no idea what the documents mean because they are
Russian, offering to call my lawyer to see if he can help, I don't have a
lawyer, but cop head insists I do no such thing. Then he finishes with the
papers.
“Sign here”
“What is it?
“It's a record of the fact that you have
been arrested”
“Do you mind if I ask for your name and
number before I sign?”
“Why?”
“My lawyer says I should always do that
before I sign anything.”
“I don't have to give you my name and
number”
“Oh, I'm very sorry but I'll have to call
my lawyer then”
“OK, you don't have to sign I have all your
details anyway”
“So what happens now?”
“You might have to go to court”
“Will you be there?”
“Why does that matter?”
“In England the arresting officer is always
there”
“England is a very civilized country”
“Is Russia not?”
“OK you can go now.”
“Goodbye”
And that's it, what happens next? My wife
who's a panicker, thinks I'll go to court, everyone else thinks he'll have
thrown the papers out off the window already and taken a vow to avoid awkward
bloody Englishmen in the future. I should have paid some stupid bribe really
but some idiot pride got in the way or something, maybe even morals, god
forbid.
2006
Never heard anymore of it
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