He is a young barrel-chested man in his thirties with a thick Russian accent. The cops found him asleep in his car outside his apartment building. They have ordered him to the hospital to sober up. “I love you,” he says to the burly officer.
“Okay, fine, buddy,” the officer says. “Just go with them and don’t give them any trouble.”
“Don’t worry,” he says to the officer as the officer steers him towards us. “You are a good man. Will you be my uncle?”
“Not today or tomorrow. You get yourself some treatment. Sober up.”
“I will do whatever you say,” he says. “I give no trouble.”
The man is from Moscow he tells me on our drive to the hospital. He has been in America for seven years. He loves it here. What does he love the most? I ask. “Freedom,” he says.
He has been drinking vodka – “Graaay Gooooose.” He says, “I drink every day for thirty days.”
He says he drinks because he is sad – he has lost his wife and daughter. I ask if they are dead and he says no. “I took my daughter just yesterday to the zoo.” It seems his wife and daughter live in a different town now.
“She also loves freedom,” he says.
“That must be hard being apart. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you. You are a good man,” he says.
“That’s nice of you to say.”
“How did you get in this business?”
“I like helping people,” I say. “It’s a good job.”
He nods. “I wish the world was all good people like you.”
“Thank you, that’s very nice of you.”
“But listen, you want to help me next time.”
“Huh?”
“The ambulance bill is high. Next time have them call a limo for me to the hospital. Cheaper. Save money.”
Later, when I am at home, I picture the hospital parking lot lined with ambulances. And then a long black limo arrives and backs in. A man in a tuxedo with a chauffer cap gets out and goes around and opens up the side door, and our Russian hero, clutching his bottle of Grey Goose, gets out. He hands the chauffer the bottle, and then slowly, sadly walks in through the ER doors, which close behind him.
