An Elegy for Evgeni Evgenev

The names have been changed or left out, but this is about as true a story as I can tell in 2012...I call it...

Yukon Ho! The Tundra...Whatever...

An Elegy for Evgeni Evgenev

From: a work-in progress called The Language School - pause-

I don’t know you but I will tell you this story since I am standing here waiting for you. Am I surprised to see you here? Yes, but not shocked.
I am trying to walk to the spot in town where I pick up the carpool and ride into the city to my job at the Language School. But you are sitting in your giant Chevy Yukon XL, hovering and humming engines outside the mouth of your tiny garage and blocking the sidewalk. I’m not quite sure you will fit in there with that big stupid car, but that is obviously where you are going. Eventually.
You are busy fiddling with your iPhone. It is clearly an iPhone because of the way your fingers dance across the screen and your eyes are all aglow - I mean, you are lit up, son! - and you have no clue I am standing here waiting for you to move.
I am capable of a very public and dramatic tirade against your vehicle. I have a well-polished list of screaming and yelling points intended especially for strangers like you. Your vehicle is a ridiculous comfort to you, and so is your glowing phone. Surely, there is an expedition afoot. You must safely secure your family’s groceries. I understand. I am a father, too. I could yell at you about these absurdities, but you and I both know it will be nicer for both of us if I tell you this story about what I am dealing with now at the language school.

I am sorry to report that Evgeni Evgenev has withdrawn from his studies. The nature of this withdrawal, this termination as we refer to it, is sudden, shocking and very much like something I might encounter in one of the Russian novels I sometimes struggle to finish.
A Russian capitalist, a shining example of the Putinization of Russia, Evegeni had his hand in many soup pots across Moscow. He had built a shopping center with his business partner, a red-faced man named Yuri. He had sold rum by the caseload at his Che Guevara Cuban Jazz Club in Moscow’s tony night club district. He vacationed in the Maldives. He tucked his shirt in and wore Fahrenheit cologne. By the time he reached the Language School, Evgeni had burned through two wives and had a daughter with a thirst for horses.
“You know, teacher, I like to live comfortably,” he told me.
You are not listening! I know. You are in your Yukon. The Yukon of your mind. You are frozen in time. You are texting. Evgeni is dead and this is how:
Evgeni first came to the Language School in response to an ad I had placed on craigslist offering a free conversation class on Wednesday afternoons. Anyone from anywhere could come practice their English with me and my students. One one condition. You must first know enough English to search for this type of thing on craigslist. Evgeni fit the profile.
Some charismatic Catalans had also answered the ad. But they were far too aloof and clever to fall for my marketing ploy. They would take my free English lesson and go back to Barcelona and replicate my idea with charisma and fire. This is always how Catalans move. But that is a story for another night.
The conversation for that class revolved around a new law passed in San Francisco banning toys in Happy Meals at McDonald’s. Evgeni had strong opinions about this. What they were, I cannot remember. What I do remember is that he was tidy and smelled strongly of his cologne. Guys like that must go through a bottle a week, I thought. After the Happy Meal conversation, he signed up for a year of classes.

From the beginning, and admittedly because of my own prejudices, I thought he was an agent of the KGB. The random things he said to me only confirmed these suspicions.

For example, he once asked me:

“Teacher, if I tuck my shirt into my pants, does this send the message that I am homosexual?”

He understood conditionals. I complimented him on his colorful shirts.

“I have this shirt in seven colors,” he responded, “I bought them at the airport.”

And finally, I thought he might be in pain when he asked:

“What does this word ‘immortality’ mean?”

And then came the worrisome questions:

“I want to take all the students on a limousine ride to Napa. I want to give it as my gift to the Language School.”

“What will it cost to have a private lesson all day, everyday?”

“I am not worried about the price I have to pay.” -pause-

I don’t know what it is, exactly, that you do for a living. It must be important and you must be doing it now, as I wait for you. I know that when we dedicate ourselves to something we love, we can tune out all of the noise of the world and we can focus. We can block the sidewalks for passersby. Indefinitely. We claim our territory in this way. Yukon Ho!

This was Evgeni’s goal, too. He had come to America, flush with capital, and he had closed the place in around him. A few days before his death, Evgeni came to us - another teacher and I - to tell us he was being followed.

“Are you in trouble back home?” we asked.
“No,” he said.
“Are you doing something illegal here?” we asked.
“No,” he said.
“Is one of your ex-wives having you followed?” I asked.
“No, no, no,” he said.
And here I thought for sure he was tied up in some good old cold war spy game. He was definitely KGB and the gig was up.
My colleague, older and wiser, saw instead something more familiar and more local. Evgeni was ill. He was suffering. We walked with him around the block. We had him walk twenty paces in front of us, nervous and sweaty. And this is what I can’t shake - he was sweating so much, even though nothing was imminent, nothing was at hand but the same world we all were inhabiting that day. It was making him so nervous. He twitched down the sidewalk, dodging the people coming at him in the way people on a busy city sidewalk do.
“No one is following you,” my colleague explained, “Have you seen a doctor?”
“Teacher,” Evgeni replied, “I don’t like this talk of doctors.”

It is a crowded planet and we need to be patient with each other. I have been patient with you and I’m sure this has taken well over ten minutes. I think we both have accomplished a lot. I have told this story out - almost - and you have sent some very important e-mails from your iPhone. And yes, I could have shrugged my shoulders and walked int the street, dodged the traffic and moved along the sidewalk. But I’m trying to learn patience. This year, I’ve stopped yelling at random strangers in public. I’ve decided only to memorize your face and your license plate for later retribution.
It is a crowded planet and it is a brave thing to volunteer to take yourself off of the face of it. Evgeni was never patient, even when he was well. But because it wasn’t happening fast enough - he couldn’t even begin to think of waiting for you to move this SUV - because of this, he took those brave steps. My colleague was brave too. He identified the body. There is something about Russian and American relations - even today - that mean a body can’t simply be sent home. Someone must see it and say, “Yes. That was him. He was here. He was Evgeni.”

I will not say exactly how Evgeni died. No one can accurately depict that. I can only say that the only thing following him was the future. And we can’t share that with him now.
And now...you have slid into your tight little garage and I can move on towards the Language School where today, I will hold a discussion on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch for anyone with enough English skills to search for that sort of thing on craigslist.