At about noon today, Tim asked me if I was ready to go, and I pretty much was.

He had asked me earlier in the day if I wanted to go over to the Civic Plaza across from the Convention Center- a few blocks from work- and “make joy”, meaning, let him take a picture of me acting out the part of the letter “Y” to complete spelling out the word began by two 6 foot tall letters that were installed there.

I am a sucker to look silly, so I easily obliged.

The catch was, I had to maintain the persona that was began some three or four years ago, when he took a picture of me wearing his oversized black sunglasses and I sported a cigarette given to me at that time by our workmate and smoker-in-chief, WC. The character that emerged out of that early set of pictures was “the beatnik”, and since, the beatnik has been in a few other pictures Tim has taken.

Anyways, we left the office, Tim with his camera and the glasses, and we walked north toward the Plaza.

Once we got to the Plaza and by the big standing letters, we realized I didn’t have a cigarette, and Tim thought I should just go ahead and “Y” it, but I didn’t think the persona was complete. I had his glasses, but my hand was empty. I told him we had to find a cigarette, which I laughed at inside like a kid who was gonna sneak a ginger snap from the hard to reach cookie jar.

To secure a cigarette, we first stopped and asked three young Latino men who looked like they had strong street cred if we could snag a smoke from them- they were each tall and muscular and sported sports shades and a range of tats.

“No, we don’t smoke”, they told us.

Whoops.

The plaza was busy with lingerers and dawdlers, and to my left, near the edge of the worn out Plaza fountain pool, a young man in drab slacks and a sweater with a conference lanyard draped around his neck stood in a puff of smoke next to an exquisite, stoic-looking young woman in a long day dress.

Without thought, I thanked the three fellas and then approached the smoking couple.

“Excuse me- I don’t smoke, but I was wondering if I could bum a cigarette off of you.”

In a strong Slavic accent, the man replied, “Sure, sure, no problem” in pretty good English.

“We don’t smoke either…”, he said as he looked over at the pretty woman, who then opened her small purse and pulled out a pack of Marlboros and pulled one from the pack and handed it to me. The it was something about from here to New York it’s 4 hours and from New York to Moscow it’s 11 hours, and in relation to the vague topic, they had somehow been up 22 hours, which we took as his explanation for their smoking.

“Oh, you are Russian.”

“Yes, we are Russian.” On his name tag, it said he was from Sochi, which he said was outside of Moscow. “We are just like you Americans. We don’t everyone have a brown bear, or only drink vodka. Politics makes it sound like we are different, but when it comes to citizens, people, no, we are like you Americans.”

The stoic woman didn’t speak but she also offered me her inexpensive clear yellow Bic lighter, and I thanked her and began to explain to them that we were using the cigarette for a prop, and then I tried to light the cigarette, sparking the lighter five times, only to have my cigarette sucking fail to ignite the tobacco, and only the tip of the cigarette turned black. Tim engaged the guy while I chuckled inside as the girl watched me try to light the cigarette, so I gave up and gave her lighter back to her.

The conference in town was international, and focused on camping, camp locations, camp management, and camp managers. And the Russians were here for that.

Tim asked them if they had been able to see any local sights while they were here. No, but they had met many people and had traveled to many other conferences, and their camp was a nice camp back near Moscow. The guy talked while the girl was quiet, looking around and looking slightly uncomfortable.

I had a theory forming, and it seemed more plausible when our conversation circled around a second time to his opening thoughts.

“We are Russians, yes, but we are just like you. We don’t have bears for animals, or always just drink vodka, like you see in movies. We are just like you.”

He just said that a moment ago. He just said that! He is hiding something.

This classic Slavic beauty is a stone cold killer and he’s the magician, the master of misdirection here. These guys gotta be Russian spies.

Conversation stalled, so we thanked them for the cigarette they gave us from the pack that they weren’t smoking and wished them a good day.

We went back to the 6 foot tall letters, and I took my place besides the “J” and the “O” and did my best beatnik “Y” pose. While Tim directed me, a short twenty-something with thick glasses and a round head with thinning hair came over and stood beside but away from Tim, watching me and the whole photo session. The Russians walked off the plaza and headed back into the convention center. I moved and sat in the “O’, trying to look cool, staring off into the distance.

After a few more photos, Tim signaled we were done, and I stood and removed the dark sunglasses and extended them to Tim, internally putting the beatnik away. While he took them, the sluggish looking glasses guy approached us.

“I saw you have a cigarette in your hand- I was just wondering- could I get a light?”

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AUTHOR’S NOTE: I do not smoke, nor do I recommend it to anyone, but I succumbed to peer pressure and still tried to look cool like a beatnik for artwork.

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Photo Credits: Tim Price, Off Center & Not Even @ T & L Photos