A Villain Arrives at Vorotyntsev Station

Roday Rostovich Ranovichi sits on the metro, alone and happy as usual. He is only happy when he’s alone, when there’s no one else around wearing weird smelly clothes and offending his eyes and nose. Roday does not consider himself to be lesser than anyone, nor does he see himself as superior. He knows himself to be superior. First, he’s good-looking, but he’s also learned to use that to his own advantage. He is not a man you’d want on your bad side, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to get on his good side. 

Roday is wearing his favorite outfit, dark green jacket and dark black pants, both several sizes too big. And scuffed-up church shoes which he has never worn to church. Wearing church shoes never to church is very fashionable. It is a great day to be fashionable, even if that fashion is one only Roday adheres to. His reflection catches in the window of the train, and he is once again amused by the classic handsomeness of his features. The line of his nose aligning just so neatly with his white teeth, tucked one by one in his mouth, as they should be, because teeth belong in your mouth or on the floor, in the case of some unworthy opponents. Appearances are always deceiving, he thinks. He smiles at himself, wondering how a man of such intelligence and humour ever came to be on such a humble train as this one. It’s also fashionable, he thinks, to think villainous thoughts.

Roday gazes at the people surrounding him. There is a baby, crying. There is the child’s mother, close to crying, and the father, in tears so violent that if Roday were to look out the window from his eyes, the glass would be blurred with consternation. 

There is an old woman with a yellow knitted cap, leaning tiredly by another with a bowl of chilly ramen noodles. Both have dark grey circles under their eyes and stare half-slitted at the floor, sometimes dropping off altogether. Roday tries to count the number of times their wrinkled chins touch their shirts, which are patterned purple and blue like a couch. When the metro screams to a stop and another old woman, with a green-couch shirt this time, gets on, Roday wonders if any of them have ever been young and happy and healthy. He seriously doubts it. 

“Ma’am!” he shouts and leaps up when the green-couch woman moves to hold onto the greasy train pole. “Take my seat, take it!”

She looks up at him gratefully and sinks into the hard plastic chair. He smiles back. Roday leans against the pole, trying not to touch the surface with his skin. The metro jolts to a start once again and the passengers slide forward as one body. The dingy station, lit with flickering barely-yellow lights, slips away through the smeared plastic windows. Roday’s heart always beats faster whenever he leaves Polotsky Station, especially, as now, in the early morning, when the streets above are fresh and clean from midnight rain and dawn wind. The scraggly trees always seem fuller and stronger in the early morning going down the stained steps to the metro station. Life always seems busier and more purposeful, which is sad, because Roday never does. 

Roday settles back by squishing his shoulder between the greasy pole and the greasy window. The metro jolts forward regularly now; the passengers have all adapted to the rhythm and no longer slide forward inelegantly like they used to. The tunnel is a resounding, depressing solid black now, seeping into the brightly lit train car. There is a general smell of vomit and someone’s shoes. Roday guesses it’s the green couch woman. 

When the metro screeches to a stop below Vorotyntsev Station, Roday is one of the first to shove his way off. The smell of green couch sneakers is almost too much. He crowds his way up the slithering escalator steps and emerges into the fresh outside air, which smells slightly of lukewarm dew and dirty asphalt.

Roday would normally rush to his favorite schnitzel stand before it closes. The owner, Yupesco, has a distinct Polish air about him. Never any bargaining or discounts with Yupesco; that’s why Roday likes him. He barely has to talk to him or look at him, and Yupesco has a similar clothing style to Roday, which is always a plus. However, as Roday checks his wallet, the big bulk of nothing greets his hand. So on he wanders, the wind exacerbating his hunger. 

He usually sits in Lustig Park, where the derelict children always love to play and torment each other. He has a cold tuna sandwich that would’ve gone nicely with some schnitzel, but… Roday adapts. He sits on his oak bench and simmers. 

It’s there in Lustig, with all the drugs and skateboarding, that Roday relaxes. He sits down and munches on his sandwich in a tentative manner, while surveying the passersby, letting them smile slightly at his gaze. He feels a small warmth but lets it be silenced by a harsh voice. They don’t matter, it said. They’re not important. Their eyes are lying. His tuna sits on his tongue like an otter on the water level. He has tuna fish for lunch every day.

There’s a courtyard at Lustig, directly in Roday’s line of sight, with a fountain in the center. To Roday, the park is a piece of everyday life. Everyday wide, sunny, depressed streets in the middle of a flat town. The park is green, the only green in the whole city. He hates it. 

If I were mayor, he thinks, I would tear the whole city down, start all over. Tall buildings, big trees, block out the sun. Make it pretty and happy. He pauses, then thinks, smiling, That wouldn’t work. I would need to tear the whole world down. 

Soon his sandwich is gone. He tosses the plastic behind the oak bench and stretches his legs, then sits back down. There’s nowhere he has to be. 

He rests his arms on the top of the bench and watches the kids play on the trees. Sitting on the bench alone is one of Roday's favorite things to do. All is just as it should be until Tvardovski sits down on the bench next to Roday. He knows his name is Tvardovski because the bastard says, “Hi, my name is Tvardovski” as he sits down. He has dark hair, skinny arms, and a crooked nose; the perfect combination of every classic villain's appearance. He’s carrying a plastic bag at his feet. Roday surmises that Tvardovski is somewhere between fifteen and twenty-five years old. The disparity is a direct consequence of Roday’s complete lack of interest in anyone but himself.

This invasion is almost more than Roday can stand and is exacerbated by Tvardovski’s next move. He sticks his hand out and attempts to shake Roday’s. Distracted for a moment, Roday stops thinking about destroying the world and concentrates his attention on how to rid himself and the world of this interloper. He hasn't ever quite been as annoyed by anyone as he is by this Tvardovski. Something in the crooked (ugly) cheery smile and pure contentment in life stamped on the villainesque face just gets under Roday's skin.

“There are three things I absolutely hate,” Roday says in response to Tvardovski’s advance. “Chewy pasta, women who put makeup on while driving, and sharing my bench with a complete stranger.” At the end of his sentence Roday smiles the evil smile he has practiced many times in his rearview mirror. Surely this smile will drive the man away. 

It doesn’t.

Roday sighs as loudly as his lungs will permit, throws his head back, and glares languidly at Tvardovski. “That is a clue for you to move on, buster,” he says in as sinister a voice as he can muster. 

“I was just reading Cherneyevsky,” the buster says, undeterred. “He has some interesting things to say on appearances and inner turmoil. Ever read it?”

Interested despite himself, because of his thought train on the train ride to Lustig, Roday shakes his head almost imperceptibly and mumbles, “Public school teachers.”

“Well,” Tvardovski says, leaning forward and beginning to gesticulate eagerly, “he thinks that appearances, while important, as they help make up others’ mind about us on first glance, are often not enough and even directly misleading. I am a prime example,” he says, with a half-sarcastic smile. Roday rolls his eyes. “After all, I have villainous looks…”

“Took the words right out of my mouth,” Roday growls.

“But a heart of gold.”

Roday snorts. Then he gestures around. “Look at all this, Mr. Smartypants. Is this all misleading? The only green in the city?”

Tvardovski shrugs. “It’s beautiful.”

“The whole city should be this way.” Peaceful. Roday likes being alone. Sometimes he fantasizes about being the only human left alive.

“Sure. And how would you do that?”

Roday doesn’t care what this child thinks of him. He just wants to get rid of him. “Tear the whole place down, start over.”

Tvardovski shakes his hands and his head together, wildly. “No, no, no, that’s not right. That’s not ethical, that’s directly against Solzhenitsyn’s ethical theories. You live in this world, you make it better, you don’t tear it down.”

“But the end would be so much -- ”

“Who says ends justify means? Adolf Hitler? Iosef Stalin? Margaret Sanger? They do not.” 

Roday stands. “Mark my words, Teeny. I don’t care what you think. I don’t care however many people you mention, however many historical bad guys- and a few gals- however much you think you can sway me. My name is Roday Rostovich Ranovichi, not Patrick Swayze.” 

“What do you mean, your name isn’t Patrick Swayze?” 

“I mean,” Roday continues, pressing the edge of his boot into the cold ground, “That I am not easily swayed. Get with the program, sweetheart, or lose your teeth in the confusion.” 

Tvardovski places a hand to his mouth, the calloused skin of his palms rough as always, because he was too busy reading to get his lotion routine done in the morning. “You can’t touch this city.” 

“Too late. I already have.” Roday smiles, showing every single one of his flat as a cookie sheet white teeth, and Tvardovski’s face crinkles with further concern. “What better way to impact a city, then to take their only hero from them?” 

“I’m not going anywhere -- ” 

“Ah, my good, deceiving in looks and weirdly disrespectful of bench boundaries fellow. You have no idea the things I have in store for this place. And when I’m done, you’ll help me move on to the rest of the world.”

“No,” the hero shakes his head, “I would never do that.” 

“Oh no? Then I suggest you get up and leave, right now.” Roday nods his head to the left of the park. “You can leave now and let me do as I wish, or try and stop me but fail in the end, relenting all power you’ve had and giving it to me.” He sits down, back beside Tvardovski, and leans closer to grab his collar and whispers, “A hero would destroy you to save the world, but a villain would destroy the world to save you.” He leans back. “Wicked, eh?” 

“What the -- ” 

"One more thing.” Roday pokes his finger at Tvardovski. “Don’t talk about me. I’d hate for the city to get such a double whammy in one week. First their beloved home is decimated, and then the man they never knew was their hero dies a slow and painful public death? That would be so evil, even for me.” 

“You’re gonna get what’s coming to you.” Tvardovski is no longer smiling as he stands up and slinks out of the park, his eyes paling with the rest of his face, his hands, the skin under his shirt and socks. He’s dying, and no one has even killed him yet. “You’re gonna get it all.” 

“Oh, I know,” Roday swings his legs up to the bench and throws Tvardovski a terrible grin, “That’s why I’m excited already.”