Uncle Joe
Americans usually don’t like eye-to-eye contact.
Looking into the eyes of a stranger is a call for a fight.
Unshaven man is sitting in the subway train in front of me. He is literally staring at me with a very unfriendly look.
– Uncle Joe?!. -he said suddenly.
He almost screams at me.
– The call him Uncle Joe! Idiots! They call this blood sucker with moustache – UNCLE JOE!
It all takes place on the train in Boston in the beginning of the 1990s. I am reading a Boston Globe paper. The article is about Uncle Joe, lovely nickname given to Joseph Stalin in the U.S.
The Cold War is over. I am not sure if anybody on the train knows much about Uncle Joe and who stood behind this name. Only me and the bum reeking with alcohol on the bench in front of me seem to know about this character from the past. It’s just ironic that a “village idiot” know more about history than all these professional looking passengers rushing to work in their banks and offices.
– He is a son of a bitch this Uncle Joe, – concluded our train historian and walks out of the train car.
I look at him with a purely American look. Gliding over him.
***
On December 21, 2014, Uncle Joe turned 135.
A while ago I made a short film about him.
My apologies but I can’t add much to it.
The original in Russian was published
in December 23, 2009
