Once upon a time, not so long ago, when you worked at this one place, with this one girl, the two of you used to sticker merchandise with a pricing gun. This one day, she pulled the trigger, producing a blank tag, affixed it to your shirt. “Worthless?” you asked. “Priceless,” she said. “I guess it’s free,” is what the witty customers would always say when coming across an untagged bottle of vitamins. It’s a question as philosophical as it is economical, one you ponder as the tram snakes its way along the Vltava, destination Sidliště Modřany, end of lines 3, 17, and 21, in search of some steamy-sweet svařak on a night too cold to do more than drink.

Hot wine provides cold comfort at a wretched time of year, especially when you know that someone somewhere is mixing spiced rum with vegan fake-nog and toasting to something you’re not around for. No, no, you’re too busy steeling your insides with five p.m. svařak and hoping your knuckles will unchap from the insides as the red heat spiced with cinnamon works its way to your extremities.
The ride isn’t free: 14 Kč each way, though that’s rendered negligible with a long-term pass, which is priceless at certain times in certain spots of the city. But, when the tram releases you into the cold and black with nary a kiosk in sight, Sidliště Modřany seems like a worthless—or, at least, fruitless—excursion. There’s forest on one side, panalak lights on the other. Nothing that resembles a pub.
You go toward the lights and duck into the first place you find, Želivka, where there’s no svařak, just a dozen people chainsmoking and watching hockey. Becherovka (30 Kč) it’ll be, then, okay, a Gambrinus (20 Kč), too. A picture on the wall shows imbibers, reads “Kde se pivo pije, se dobře žije.” Where one drinks beer, one lives well.
But beer’s cold, and so’s the night, and you quickly find yourself in it again, a half-liter of 10º suds sloshing in your belly. You begin to give up. “Worthless,” you say, “fucking worthless.” But then you shiver your way to one of those little mini malls all the housing projects you have, and you stumble into Gattino, a surprisingly garlic-fragrant Italian restaurant in the Sázava shopping center. “Svařak,” you plead, so they give it to you, in a glass, at a table. It’s cold out. You haven’t eaten all day. “Spaghetti ai pomodori,” you order, so they give it to you, and it’s fresh chopped tomatoes with fresh chopped garlic. You’ve ordered 105 Kč worth so far. You try to think of a reason to stay, something else to order. The night’s cold, the kind of cold that makes you feel worthless. The restaurant’s warm, and you can’t put a sticker on that.

Previously published in December 2006 Provokator print magazine.

Average user rating

   (0 vote)