Post by Immanuel Taylor on Mar 11, 2011 22:48:55 GMT -5
“Long have I journeyed and far have I roamed”
Vitali Khodorkovsky’s Desert Eagle is not the only automatic weapon he carries with him. Yes, it certainly is the most monstrous-looking. But it’s not the only one. Vitali carried a second automatic weapon, a much smaller blackish rusty-esque one, in the back of his pants. He also additionally harbored a concealed switchblade in the right inner-sleeve of his leather trench coat. San Francisco’s chilly weather gave him the perfect environment to put on a coat and thus keep himself both fully and stealthily armed.
Khodorkovsky is still involved in the of shaving and thus the coat and firearms would come later. Khodorkovsky, 6’7 and in the mid 200 pounds, is bent over his hotel bathroom’s sink as he methodically guides the straight razor down his neck, clearing the facial-hair-tinged shaving cream away and leaving a smooth baby bottom-like path in its wake. Khodorkovsky had been using this straight razor since his early teenage days in the Azerbaijan republic of the Soviet Union. He switched to the all-too-common disposable razors when he first came to America but found it to be inferior to a straight razor. This specific straight razor was his first, a present from his long-deceased father, and doubles both as a shaving apparatus and a possible weapon.
Khodorkovsky, his face as Russian-heavy as his last name, tapped the blade on the edifice of the sink and let the running tap water wash over it. He then went back to work, making calculated and well-honed strokes with his blade. After he was done he washed his blade and the remainder of the shaving cream off his face and applied some Brut aftershave. Khodorkovsky took a few steps backwards and stared at himself in the mirror. He is completely naked save for his black boxers and his body is covered in a mosaic of tattoos, scars and the occasional odd purple and blue bruises. There were four of the last category to be exact. Three in the middle section and one slightly above his left nipple. The rest was a mix of tattoos over baby-bottom smooth skin and cringe-worthy scars. The tattoos were a mixture of Russian language and of images. He had a large cross positioned rather conveniently on his chest. It’s a three-bar Patriarchal cross with an outer margin in addition to the cross itself positioned inside. The other tattoos are too numerous and sometimes even too eccentric.
Underneath the cross, another prominent tattoo sticks out, one that reads Опала in Russian and is spaced out horizontally on his stomach. There are epaulette tattoos on both of his shoulders, as majestic looking as the large cross. On his left knuckles Грязный is tattooed in, and on his right knuckles Грязь is present. Both seem to be in Indo-European Russian, a prominent Slavic language.
Khodorkovsky slid on a white wool sweater, black dress pants with a sturdy belt, black wing-tip shoes, and a final similarly black overcoat. Khodorkovsky picked up his Desert Eagle, checked the clip, and then placed the behemoth of a weapon into the left inner-pocket of his coat. Khodorkovsky then picked up his backup automatic weapon, the smaller sibling, checked its clip and placed it in the back of his pants. Khodorkovsky grabbed the switchblade but decided not to take it. He took the straight razor though, after folding it shut, and nudged into the left pocket of his pants with its butt concealed in order for a quick retrieval.
Khodorkovsky grabbed the book he was currently reading, Daniel Bell’s The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism , and shoved it into the right inner-pocket of his coat. It was a perfect fit. Khodorkovsky picked up one of the three passports he had with him, an Israeli one, and slid it into the left back pocket of his pants. The leather wallet went into the right one. He combed his gray hair, turned off the lights and picked up a pair of gloves to conceal the tattoos on his hands. He left his room at the Hotel Tropicana and made his way to the elevator before pressing the rather obvious “DOWN” key. It took a waiting time of 7 seconds before the well-dressed Russian individual decided to take the stairs instead.
As Khodorkovsky shut the stairwell door behind him, the elevator’s doors opened and out stepped current EUW wrestler Immanuel Taylor with a shoulder bag. Immanuel made his way to the room opposite of Khodorkovsky’s room and proceeded to “retire for the night”. Down at the reception area, Vitali Khodorkovsky passed by the receptionist and eyed him for a couple of seconds. Vitali sensed that this was a man who might or might not be in possession of a weapon. It had something to do with the way he stood, the sheer smugness of it. Khodorkovsky made a mental note to not turn his back on him.
The San Francisco weather around this time of year is around 14 Celsius. Some mild rain here and there but, fortunately for Mr. Khodorkovsky, none tonight. He had persisted in delaying the purchase of an umbrella. Vitali kept his pace as he roamed down the streets of the Mission District of San Francisco, passing by the ridiculously expensive EUW headquarters building. Khodorkovsky didn’t find San Francisco that much better than Chicago but this was irrelevant. Former EUW CEO Chad Kennedy had paid him a very, very substantial amount of hard currency to come here and help him with his “internal problem”. This of course is separate to what Kennedy had to additionally pay to Jordan King, Khodorkovsky’s former employer, just so King could release Vitali from his current contract
The “internal problem” itself is Immanuel Taylor, a recent recruit to EUW who seems to have irritated Kennedy. Khodorkovsky already scanned through Immanuel’s file and found many, many discomforting signs. What truly discomforted him the most was whether this was simply discomforting or a special kind of discomfort. This Immanuel character was obviously not American. Worse, Khodorkovsky pinned him down to Eastern Europe. A strong possibility of being Yugoslavian or from one of the former USSR republics. This is strongly supported by the supposed age of Immanuel Taylor: 42 years old.
Khodorkovsky himself is 58 and he has been to many places, seen many things, and been in many situations. Khodorkovsky’s seen it all. His bruises, scars and tattoos told a story. The homeless man Khodorkovsky just passed had a story too. Vitali stopped, took out a 20 dollar bill and slid into the nameless vagrant’s siphon cup. The nameless, and now astonished, vagrant said something but Vitali had already made a considerable distance away from him. Khodorkovsky could afford to be charitable, the salary he was being funneled is remarkably spacious and plentiful. Thus Khodorkovsky could afford to be charitable and he can very well afford to dine in at a supposedly 5-star restaurant.
Gary Danko is located at 800 N. Point Street and requires only 17 minutes of car travel to reach it. Khodorkovsky took 8 minutes walking from The Hotel Tropicana to reach the intersection of S Van Ness Avenue and 16th Street whereupon he locked his sights at a lone taxi cab. It took the driver 21 minutes, plus the parking and traffic stop signs, to reach the Gary Danko 5-star restaurant. Not only was it a 5-star restaurant but it has been awarded the five-star label six bloody times. Vitali Khodorkovsky might have come from Soviet Russia where two loaves of bread are considered a luxury but he sure as shit knew how to appreciate quality.
“Hello sir” mumbled the young, attractive, blondish woman at the reception area.
“I have a reservation for a Mr. Khodorkovsky” Vitali’s repsonse is quick and to the point as he enters the front door after paying the cab driver.
“Let’s see….hmmm…Ah ok. I’ve got you right here Mr. Kodorosvky” The young woman managed to not significantly disfigure Khodorkovsky’s name as she grabbed a menu and led him into the six-time 5-star restaurant. The place itself was neither as snobbish or elitist as Khodorkovsky initially thought when he stumbled upon it in the yellow pages of a phone book and called to make a reservation. The main design here was wood panels, they were everywhere. Wood-paneled floor, wood-paneled ceiling, and gold-encrusted veneers on the top of wooden bars. The only traditional thing were the table cloths, the original white cloths being prominently displayed on each table. Khodorkovsky’s table cloth was spotless and looked as if it was bought recently.
“Would you like a newspaper?”
Khodorkovsky shook his head and gave a faint smile as he took his overcoat off and placed it on the table.
“Would you like me to hang your coat for you, sir?”
“No” Khodorkovsky quickly replied while clutching the menu. A three course meal here cost 68 dollars, a 4 course 85 dollars and a five course one ranged around the oddly specific price of 102 dollars. An ounce caviar, Black Sea Ostera , itself is 95 dollars. Vitali could easily afford all of this but he didn’t know if he could stomach the goddamn pretentiousness of it. Vitali recalled very vividly the long bread queues, the limited quantity of rations one could get, the long hours of work that he found after being dismissed from the KGB, those long hours of work that he worked tirelessly and yet still didn’t own one acre of property.
Vitali grew up with bread queues, grew up with enforced order layered over discreet chaos. Immanuel grew up with the hammer and sickle carved into his mind. Khodorkovsky is 58 years old now and is geographically situated in “The West” but he could never be a true Westerner.
Still, Vitali had money, lots of it, and thus decided to reasonably indulge himself a bit. He ordered a glass of wine, Tele de Cuises , a plate of selected farmhouse cheese, and the majestically sounding “Winter Vegetables and Pomegranate Gastrique”. The waiter, a young and well-fit man as every youngster is in San Francisco, took his order with fake delight as Vitali nodded, he nods a lot, and checked the inner-pockets of his laid overcoat. The Desert Eagle is present, safe and ready to use in case of any contingency. Vitali went to the opposite pocket and took out the book he was currently reading, Daniel Bell’s Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism .
Khodorkovsky opened the book at the bookmark which was a recent photograph of Immanuel Taylor. As Khodorkovsky took out his reading glasses and placed them on, he held up the Immanuel Taylor photograph bookmark and looked at it, looked at the face of Immanuel Taylor. Who is this guy? And what has he done to former EUW CEO Chad Kennedy in order to warrant hiring an ex-KGB officer to investigate him?
Khodorkovsky knew Immanuel has a strongly Eastern European tinge to his flesh, maybe not “Eastern” per se but without a doubt European. Vitali’s top three choices for ethnicity would be Romanian, Ukrainian or Yugoslavian. Bosnia was a strong possibility as was Serbia. Not a Russian, this Khodorkovsky is sure of. Immanuel’s folder said he had served in the first Gulf War, the first Gulf war waged against Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime’s invasion of Kuwait. That’s a start Khodorkovsky could definitely use. He didn’t have any contacts with the United States Army Division let along a Gulf War veteran but he had money and had the CEO of EUW paying him. Kennedy himself confirmed Immanuel’s presence in the Gulf War but couldn’t find out something about the OTH. It would spring up uncomfortable questions about a CEO investigating his own employees. This is where Khodorkovsky comes in.
Quiet and Professional. That’s what Chad explicitly said to Jordan King, CEO of Sun-Media News. Vitali Khodorkovsky knew how to do that, how to be quiet yet effective. He had been in many, many situations requiring this. The Gulf War and the Other than Honorable dismissal is a good start though. Immanuel could be nothing more than a naturalized American citizen who couldn’t handle the stress of war or he could be something much more sinister. Khodorkovsky set the photograph aside and grabbed his book, rented from Kennedy’s personal library. The food itself came quite shortly after.
It took Khodorkovsky 27 pages, a glass of wine, a quarter of a brick of cheese, and a couple of bites from Winter Vegetables and the Pomengrate mumbo jumbo to decide that this place is truly not for him. It is not and will never be. He shoved the photograph of Immanuel Taylor into the book, placed the book into the overcoat, and flung on the overcoat before paying the bill with his loaded debit card. The concept of credit cards were sacrilege to a man who grew up in a communist nation.
The young and well-fit stereotype of a young waiter offered to call a cab, which arrived promptly. Khodorkovsky's drive back home was interupted by the sight of a small Russian diner at the intersection of Gough and Bush street. He halted the cab, paid the female driver, and made his way towards the obscure oasis.
Khodorkovsky's entry was greeted by a giant portrait of Mikhail Gorbachev, the man responsible for the perestroika era of the USSR. Next to him was a framed photograph of the "Sputnik moment" that the Soviets were particularly fond of. Vitali wasted no time in finding a seat at one of the tables, the place itself was empty.
Vitali took off his gloves, opened up his book, put on his reading glasses and began to read while waiting for one of the inevitable waiters to appear. The inevitable waiter eventually took the form of a senior man, whose calm veneer was uproared by the sight of Khodorkovsky.
The senior man, in an apron and all, took one look at Vitali, just one look at him, and knew exactly the type of man he is. Vitali, noticing his presence, looked up and eyed him with calmness. The senior waiter, presumably an owner too, approached Vitali and wasted no time.
“Yekaniach nikano pre am musli” The senior began, speaking in Russian, with hostility.
“Yenyan Din” Khodorkovsky shut his book with the photo of Immanuel Taylor as a bookmark “Ne ya icin bustoka va du pajalusto”
The senior man, definitely in his sixties at the least, continued to eye the patient Khodorkovsky with both cautiousness and a mild resentment. His eyes switched from Khodorkovsky’s face to the tattoos on his knuckles. Khodorkovsky’s sleeves were rolled back and thus two more tattoos were visible. One was a “Vor” tattoo tattoed on his left wrist and the beginnings of another tattoo showing just from the rolled sleeve. The “Vor” tattoo was the one that caused the senior man to widen his eyes.
“Yaza na to shtoluduka que le me buknevia du vu ple pro guvania” The senior’s voice now more commanding “Pa ja luste ste seeme vua bede ae chuva”
“We are mistaken about me” Khodorkovsky said, now switching to English “We are in America, we should speak English”
Khodorkovsky rose up and extended his arm in a handshake manner. “My name is Vitali Khodorkovsky and I am from Sverdlovsk”
“You are a vor” The senior’s English is broken and much less impressive than Khodorkovsky’s flawless take of the language. “I know a vor when I see one, now leave before I call police”
Khodorkovsky raised his arms in a surrendering manner, obviously mockingly. He rose up, put on his overcoat, and tucked his book in the right inner-pocket. He approached the unfazed senior, stopping next to him and leaning in to his ear.
“vorai v zaknoes omrei shfuzz comunismom” Khodorkovsky whispered in Russian before backing away. He looked around the diner with its pictures of Trotsky, Khrushchev, Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Putin, and current Russia president Medvedev. There was a giant photograph of Sputnik and a flag of modern Russia. Khodorkovsky finished surveying the place and met the senior’s eyes.
“I like the design of the place. Ochina Rassiski”
Vitali left the ethnic enclave of a diner as the senior, having played his hand calmly, noticed that Khodorkovsky left his gloves, accidentally dropped on the floor. He sat down on the very same chair Vitali was occupying and, with a Stoic face on, tried to make sense of the sheer senselessness of meeting a former Vor v Zakone in San Francisco. A couple made their way into the diner, Americans not Russians, and the senior immediately put on his mirthful face as he greeted them in, battling his inner-stress with an overabundance of hospitality.
Vitali Khodorkovsky’s Desert Eagle is not the only automatic weapon he carries with him. Yes, it certainly is the most monstrous-looking. But it’s not the only one. Vitali carried a second automatic weapon, a much smaller blackish rusty-esque one, in the back of his pants. He also additionally harbored a concealed switchblade in the right inner-sleeve of his leather trench coat. San Francisco’s chilly weather gave him the perfect environment to put on a coat and thus keep himself both fully and stealthily armed.
Khodorkovsky is still involved in the of shaving and thus the coat and firearms would come later. Khodorkovsky, 6’7 and in the mid 200 pounds, is bent over his hotel bathroom’s sink as he methodically guides the straight razor down his neck, clearing the facial-hair-tinged shaving cream away and leaving a smooth baby bottom-like path in its wake. Khodorkovsky had been using this straight razor since his early teenage days in the Azerbaijan republic of the Soviet Union. He switched to the all-too-common disposable razors when he first came to America but found it to be inferior to a straight razor. This specific straight razor was his first, a present from his long-deceased father, and doubles both as a shaving apparatus and a possible weapon.
Khodorkovsky, his face as Russian-heavy as his last name, tapped the blade on the edifice of the sink and let the running tap water wash over it. He then went back to work, making calculated and well-honed strokes with his blade. After he was done he washed his blade and the remainder of the shaving cream off his face and applied some Brut aftershave. Khodorkovsky took a few steps backwards and stared at himself in the mirror. He is completely naked save for his black boxers and his body is covered in a mosaic of tattoos, scars and the occasional odd purple and blue bruises. There were four of the last category to be exact. Three in the middle section and one slightly above his left nipple. The rest was a mix of tattoos over baby-bottom smooth skin and cringe-worthy scars. The tattoos were a mixture of Russian language and of images. He had a large cross positioned rather conveniently on his chest. It’s a three-bar Patriarchal cross with an outer margin in addition to the cross itself positioned inside. The other tattoos are too numerous and sometimes even too eccentric.
Underneath the cross, another prominent tattoo sticks out, one that reads Опала in Russian and is spaced out horizontally on his stomach. There are epaulette tattoos on both of his shoulders, as majestic looking as the large cross. On his left knuckles Грязный is tattooed in, and on his right knuckles Грязь is present. Both seem to be in Indo-European Russian, a prominent Slavic language.
Khodorkovsky slid on a white wool sweater, black dress pants with a sturdy belt, black wing-tip shoes, and a final similarly black overcoat. Khodorkovsky picked up his Desert Eagle, checked the clip, and then placed the behemoth of a weapon into the left inner-pocket of his coat. Khodorkovsky then picked up his backup automatic weapon, the smaller sibling, checked its clip and placed it in the back of his pants. Khodorkovsky grabbed the switchblade but decided not to take it. He took the straight razor though, after folding it shut, and nudged into the left pocket of his pants with its butt concealed in order for a quick retrieval.
Khodorkovsky grabbed the book he was currently reading, Daniel Bell’s The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism , and shoved it into the right inner-pocket of his coat. It was a perfect fit. Khodorkovsky picked up one of the three passports he had with him, an Israeli one, and slid it into the left back pocket of his pants. The leather wallet went into the right one. He combed his gray hair, turned off the lights and picked up a pair of gloves to conceal the tattoos on his hands. He left his room at the Hotel Tropicana and made his way to the elevator before pressing the rather obvious “DOWN” key. It took a waiting time of 7 seconds before the well-dressed Russian individual decided to take the stairs instead.
As Khodorkovsky shut the stairwell door behind him, the elevator’s doors opened and out stepped current EUW wrestler Immanuel Taylor with a shoulder bag. Immanuel made his way to the room opposite of Khodorkovsky’s room and proceeded to “retire for the night”. Down at the reception area, Vitali Khodorkovsky passed by the receptionist and eyed him for a couple of seconds. Vitali sensed that this was a man who might or might not be in possession of a weapon. It had something to do with the way he stood, the sheer smugness of it. Khodorkovsky made a mental note to not turn his back on him.
The San Francisco weather around this time of year is around 14 Celsius. Some mild rain here and there but, fortunately for Mr. Khodorkovsky, none tonight. He had persisted in delaying the purchase of an umbrella. Vitali kept his pace as he roamed down the streets of the Mission District of San Francisco, passing by the ridiculously expensive EUW headquarters building. Khodorkovsky didn’t find San Francisco that much better than Chicago but this was irrelevant. Former EUW CEO Chad Kennedy had paid him a very, very substantial amount of hard currency to come here and help him with his “internal problem”. This of course is separate to what Kennedy had to additionally pay to Jordan King, Khodorkovsky’s former employer, just so King could release Vitali from his current contract
The “internal problem” itself is Immanuel Taylor, a recent recruit to EUW who seems to have irritated Kennedy. Khodorkovsky already scanned through Immanuel’s file and found many, many discomforting signs. What truly discomforted him the most was whether this was simply discomforting or a special kind of discomfort. This Immanuel character was obviously not American. Worse, Khodorkovsky pinned him down to Eastern Europe. A strong possibility of being Yugoslavian or from one of the former USSR republics. This is strongly supported by the supposed age of Immanuel Taylor: 42 years old.
Khodorkovsky himself is 58 and he has been to many places, seen many things, and been in many situations. Khodorkovsky’s seen it all. His bruises, scars and tattoos told a story. The homeless man Khodorkovsky just passed had a story too. Vitali stopped, took out a 20 dollar bill and slid into the nameless vagrant’s siphon cup. The nameless, and now astonished, vagrant said something but Vitali had already made a considerable distance away from him. Khodorkovsky could afford to be charitable, the salary he was being funneled is remarkably spacious and plentiful. Thus Khodorkovsky could afford to be charitable and he can very well afford to dine in at a supposedly 5-star restaurant.
Gary Danko is located at 800 N. Point Street and requires only 17 minutes of car travel to reach it. Khodorkovsky took 8 minutes walking from The Hotel Tropicana to reach the intersection of S Van Ness Avenue and 16th Street whereupon he locked his sights at a lone taxi cab. It took the driver 21 minutes, plus the parking and traffic stop signs, to reach the Gary Danko 5-star restaurant. Not only was it a 5-star restaurant but it has been awarded the five-star label six bloody times. Vitali Khodorkovsky might have come from Soviet Russia where two loaves of bread are considered a luxury but he sure as shit knew how to appreciate quality.
“Hello sir” mumbled the young, attractive, blondish woman at the reception area.
“I have a reservation for a Mr. Khodorkovsky” Vitali’s repsonse is quick and to the point as he enters the front door after paying the cab driver.
“Let’s see….hmmm…Ah ok. I’ve got you right here Mr. Kodorosvky” The young woman managed to not significantly disfigure Khodorkovsky’s name as she grabbed a menu and led him into the six-time 5-star restaurant. The place itself was neither as snobbish or elitist as Khodorkovsky initially thought when he stumbled upon it in the yellow pages of a phone book and called to make a reservation. The main design here was wood panels, they were everywhere. Wood-paneled floor, wood-paneled ceiling, and gold-encrusted veneers on the top of wooden bars. The only traditional thing were the table cloths, the original white cloths being prominently displayed on each table. Khodorkovsky’s table cloth was spotless and looked as if it was bought recently.
“Would you like a newspaper?”
Khodorkovsky shook his head and gave a faint smile as he took his overcoat off and placed it on the table.
“Would you like me to hang your coat for you, sir?”
“No” Khodorkovsky quickly replied while clutching the menu. A three course meal here cost 68 dollars, a 4 course 85 dollars and a five course one ranged around the oddly specific price of 102 dollars. An ounce caviar, Black Sea Ostera , itself is 95 dollars. Vitali could easily afford all of this but he didn’t know if he could stomach the goddamn pretentiousness of it. Vitali recalled very vividly the long bread queues, the limited quantity of rations one could get, the long hours of work that he found after being dismissed from the KGB, those long hours of work that he worked tirelessly and yet still didn’t own one acre of property.
Vitali grew up with bread queues, grew up with enforced order layered over discreet chaos. Immanuel grew up with the hammer and sickle carved into his mind. Khodorkovsky is 58 years old now and is geographically situated in “The West” but he could never be a true Westerner.
Still, Vitali had money, lots of it, and thus decided to reasonably indulge himself a bit. He ordered a glass of wine, Tele de Cuises , a plate of selected farmhouse cheese, and the majestically sounding “Winter Vegetables and Pomegranate Gastrique”. The waiter, a young and well-fit man as every youngster is in San Francisco, took his order with fake delight as Vitali nodded, he nods a lot, and checked the inner-pockets of his laid overcoat. The Desert Eagle is present, safe and ready to use in case of any contingency. Vitali went to the opposite pocket and took out the book he was currently reading, Daniel Bell’s Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism .
Khodorkovsky opened the book at the bookmark which was a recent photograph of Immanuel Taylor. As Khodorkovsky took out his reading glasses and placed them on, he held up the Immanuel Taylor photograph bookmark and looked at it, looked at the face of Immanuel Taylor. Who is this guy? And what has he done to former EUW CEO Chad Kennedy in order to warrant hiring an ex-KGB officer to investigate him?
Khodorkovsky knew Immanuel has a strongly Eastern European tinge to his flesh, maybe not “Eastern” per se but without a doubt European. Vitali’s top three choices for ethnicity would be Romanian, Ukrainian or Yugoslavian. Bosnia was a strong possibility as was Serbia. Not a Russian, this Khodorkovsky is sure of. Immanuel’s folder said he had served in the first Gulf War, the first Gulf war waged against Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime’s invasion of Kuwait. That’s a start Khodorkovsky could definitely use. He didn’t have any contacts with the United States Army Division let along a Gulf War veteran but he had money and had the CEO of EUW paying him. Kennedy himself confirmed Immanuel’s presence in the Gulf War but couldn’t find out something about the OTH. It would spring up uncomfortable questions about a CEO investigating his own employees. This is where Khodorkovsky comes in.
Quiet and Professional. That’s what Chad explicitly said to Jordan King, CEO of Sun-Media News. Vitali Khodorkovsky knew how to do that, how to be quiet yet effective. He had been in many, many situations requiring this. The Gulf War and the Other than Honorable dismissal is a good start though. Immanuel could be nothing more than a naturalized American citizen who couldn’t handle the stress of war or he could be something much more sinister. Khodorkovsky set the photograph aside and grabbed his book, rented from Kennedy’s personal library. The food itself came quite shortly after.
It took Khodorkovsky 27 pages, a glass of wine, a quarter of a brick of cheese, and a couple of bites from Winter Vegetables and the Pomengrate mumbo jumbo to decide that this place is truly not for him. It is not and will never be. He shoved the photograph of Immanuel Taylor into the book, placed the book into the overcoat, and flung on the overcoat before paying the bill with his loaded debit card. The concept of credit cards were sacrilege to a man who grew up in a communist nation.
The young and well-fit stereotype of a young waiter offered to call a cab, which arrived promptly. Khodorkovsky's drive back home was interupted by the sight of a small Russian diner at the intersection of Gough and Bush street. He halted the cab, paid the female driver, and made his way towards the obscure oasis.
Khodorkovsky's entry was greeted by a giant portrait of Mikhail Gorbachev, the man responsible for the perestroika era of the USSR. Next to him was a framed photograph of the "Sputnik moment" that the Soviets were particularly fond of. Vitali wasted no time in finding a seat at one of the tables, the place itself was empty.
Vitali took off his gloves, opened up his book, put on his reading glasses and began to read while waiting for one of the inevitable waiters to appear. The inevitable waiter eventually took the form of a senior man, whose calm veneer was uproared by the sight of Khodorkovsky.
The senior man, in an apron and all, took one look at Vitali, just one look at him, and knew exactly the type of man he is. Vitali, noticing his presence, looked up and eyed him with calmness. The senior waiter, presumably an owner too, approached Vitali and wasted no time.
“Yekaniach nikano pre am musli” The senior began, speaking in Russian, with hostility.
“Yenyan Din” Khodorkovsky shut his book with the photo of Immanuel Taylor as a bookmark “Ne ya icin bustoka va du pajalusto”
The senior man, definitely in his sixties at the least, continued to eye the patient Khodorkovsky with both cautiousness and a mild resentment. His eyes switched from Khodorkovsky’s face to the tattoos on his knuckles. Khodorkovsky’s sleeves were rolled back and thus two more tattoos were visible. One was a “Vor” tattoo tattoed on his left wrist and the beginnings of another tattoo showing just from the rolled sleeve. The “Vor” tattoo was the one that caused the senior man to widen his eyes.
“Yaza na to shtoluduka que le me buknevia du vu ple pro guvania” The senior’s voice now more commanding “Pa ja luste ste seeme vua bede ae chuva”
“We are mistaken about me” Khodorkovsky said, now switching to English “We are in America, we should speak English”
Khodorkovsky rose up and extended his arm in a handshake manner. “My name is Vitali Khodorkovsky and I am from Sverdlovsk”
“You are a vor” The senior’s English is broken and much less impressive than Khodorkovsky’s flawless take of the language. “I know a vor when I see one, now leave before I call police”
Khodorkovsky raised his arms in a surrendering manner, obviously mockingly. He rose up, put on his overcoat, and tucked his book in the right inner-pocket. He approached the unfazed senior, stopping next to him and leaning in to his ear.
“vorai v zaknoes omrei shfuzz comunismom” Khodorkovsky whispered in Russian before backing away. He looked around the diner with its pictures of Trotsky, Khrushchev, Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Putin, and current Russia president Medvedev. There was a giant photograph of Sputnik and a flag of modern Russia. Khodorkovsky finished surveying the place and met the senior’s eyes.
“I like the design of the place. Ochina Rassiski”
Vitali left the ethnic enclave of a diner as the senior, having played his hand calmly, noticed that Khodorkovsky left his gloves, accidentally dropped on the floor. He sat down on the very same chair Vitali was occupying and, with a Stoic face on, tried to make sense of the sheer senselessness of meeting a former Vor v Zakone in San Francisco. A couple made their way into the diner, Americans not Russians, and the senior immediately put on his mirthful face as he greeted them in, battling his inner-stress with an overabundance of hospitality.
