Vice and Virtue

By James Sedgwick

I was in the midst of a long stroll and happened upon it one evening. A crusty blue neon light depicted a bottle of vodka, hanging crookedly in the window. I was wet and dreary, and miserably cold, so I stepped inside

One of the wonderful things about life is the mystery of opening a new door and having only the foggiest idea about what lies on the other side. When Leonid moves across the city into a grimy, seedy neighborhood, he is met with unfamiliar and uncomfortable surroundings. As he adopts a new pattern of living, he discovers - in sometimes humorous ways - that wisdom often comes from the unlikeliest of places.

And so does love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9781514411377

James Sedgwick

James loves eating, loves thinking, and loves writing. Born in Kansas to parents that both grew up on farms, James appreciates the many benefits of rural living and dreams of someday owning a quiet place out in the country. He currently resides in Illinois, where he forges a career as a professional violinist.

Book preview

Introduction

CONVERSATION

The conversation always ends differently. I never really know what direction my thoughts will take, and I typical leave them alone, because trying to control thoughts is the surest way to lose control of them. They are too independent and rebellious to be tamed. Lion tamers are eaten by lions, and sooner or later people that dabble with alligators have something chopped off. A well-trained Doberman Pincher can switch into a rogue killing machine at a moment’s notice. The way of nature is to thwart those that would subjugate it.

The whole world is Jurassic Park.

An erotic romance novel was never part of the scene until today, and tomorrow it will be gone again. Or it may resurface, it may evolve, it may choose a title—the novel may be a one time purchase or a way of life.

Thoughts are subversive—and as such there is nothing more dangerous and nothing more influential.

Speaking of thoughts, there is one man whose thoughts are even unrulier than mine, and as such he is the wisest man I know. He also happens to be the most debauched.

Chapter 29

MEETING YAKOB

I was in the midst of a long stroll and happened upon it one evening. A crusty blue neon light depicted a bottle of vodka, hanging crookedly in the window. I was wet and dreary, and miserably cold, so I stepped inside. Cigarette smoke filled every corner of the room, and I coughed a couple times as I pawed at my stinging eyes. Tears though quickly formed a kind of salve, and after several seconds I could survey my surroundings. It was a tiny hole, with a ceiling that almost brushed my head—only four tables that all sat two people, and a few seats at a bar. I plopped down wearily in a seat at the bar, and waved at the bartender, a brusque man of about 35 with a thick, untamed beard. He looked like a convict.

Gimme a shot of vodka I ordered pleasantly.

Who are you? the bartender growled.

Leonid. Just moved in from over on the D—Prospect.

Alright. He brandished a shot glass, reached under the bar and came out with a bottle. Then he asked a peculiar question. You like to think?

Huh? I had no idea what that meant.

I mean, do you think a lot? About things? the bartender pressed eagerly, as he filled the shot glass.

I shrugged, trying to play the situation cool. I do some thinking here and there. Why?

The bartender suddenly chuckled. I can introduce you to a man.

Um… okay?

This is not an ordinary man.

Truth be told, the situation was beginning to give me the jitters. As soon as I downed the glass, I would be on my way. There was something eery in his tone, something unsettling in the place… perhaps something even sinister. Was he trying to move opium? Was he another convict? Was he hunted for murder? Anything seemed possible, but it was time to leave. I downed my drink and stood up.

Well, thanks, but I think I will be on my way now… I murmured apologetically.

Yakob? The bartender barked somewhere behind me. Yakob!!!

I sighed. I guess I would meet the man, but I would be ready to run should something turn sour. There was a stir behind me, and I realized for the first time there was somebody else buried in the gloom. I let my head turn until I laid eyes on this man who was not ordinary.

My first observation was that the man was drunk, which oddly enough, allowed me to relax. A drunk was easy to outrun, and—perhaps more importantly—usually a bad shot (no pun intended). His breath came in great heaves, and his head seemed to move up and down with every inhalation and exhalation. His beard was scraggly, ugly, and black. His eyes were sunken deep into his skull, and his crooked nose protruded too far. Something about his face, though, notwithstanding the fuzz and the sniffer, seemed to indicate intelligence. Perhaps it was the high wrinkly forehead or the pastoral softness in his green eyes.

Yakob grunted something that might have been a greeting.

I nodded amicably. Hello.

And that was it. I tossed the requisite money on the bar and left. My fears were assuaged, and I felt thankful to be away. Most importantly, whatever vodka I had was good.

I decided I liked Shtamky’s.

Chapter 3

RESIDENCE

At the end of T—Prospect there was a grimy apartment building. Everything about the place was squalid: Everything white was yellow or worse, everything smooth was rough, and everything silent was creaky or squeaky. Ah yes, and everything straight was crooked. It was three floors high, and I lived on the top floor, whose only redeeming quality was that it was near the roof. And on the roof, the cares of life melted away. Even in the bitterest cold, I would huddle on the roof: something about the open air was absolutely necessary for me, perhaps because the rooms all smelled of smoke, and had an eternal stuffiness. Of course outside it also smelled of smoke, but the stuffiness was slightly more tolerable. I figured that life was really all about how stuffy one felt, and the less stuffy the better. If you lived stuffy long enough, eventually you became stuffy, and a stuffy person was the worst of all people.

The claustrophobia was inescapable. The ceilings were too low, and the windows were barely peepholes. I could not stay in for more than an hour at a time before I began to feverishly pace and hold conversations with people that were nowhere around. Since this was bound to be unhealthy for me, I never ate in. I scavenged the streets daily for likely restaurants or dives. If nothing else, I could get some socialization from servers and bartenders. Maybe—with a playful attitude and better fortune—I could even convince a woman to smile at me.

Something about being in civilization allowed one to feel as if he or she were not alone, and more importantly, that somewhere amongst these people there was relevance to life. Somewhere buried in the mass of humanity there was meaning and purpose, and that could be why people were so drawn to cities, especially people searching for meaning and purpose. Little did they realize that they would not find such things until they left the city. Cities were flush with convenience and pleasure, neither of which was suitable for discovering virtue. And a semblance of virtue was necessary for a sense of purpose.

Chapter 43

THE NOTE

There was nobody around that I knew—no friends, not even an acquaintance. So upon my return, I was astonished when I met a stranger waiting outside my door. She was about 24 or 25, and had a winsome smile. That is all I noticed, and she vanished. I almost called out to her, but why? What had I to say? If she wished to leave, that was her business.

It was then that I discovered a torn slip of paper in my hand—she must have placed it there, and I instinctively clutched it, like a baby squeezing a finger that you place in its fist.

A few handwritten words were scrawled in messy cursive.

Shtamky’s—21:00 hours—Wednesday

I had no idea whose was the handwriting or why it was given to me or what the alleged meeting was even about.

Rest assured I