There was no way the Russians were ever going to overcome the world unless they could overcome the United States. That was the firm conviction of all the Russian officials who gathered in the Very Important Room for tea and some Russian food which the author cannot spell, when, after Brezhnev, the clown of the bunch, amused them all by impersonating Ronald Reagan with a Russian lisp, they all sat down to the most dire business at hand—no, not which cakes to have at the next meeting, but the way to conquer the United States!

It was the very gruff Ivan Spatulishnotshkutchkinitski who cleared his throat after the others had finally stopped drying their eyes and after a final whoop of laughter burst from them when Leonid accidentally sat in the strawberry crêpe suzette.

“Er, I thought this meeting was going to be important,” Ivan finally said. “For need I remind you, because we are in the Very Important Room, very important things must be discussed. If not, if we fail to arrive at one very important decision or discuss one very important subject—and not like last time, how the Mets will do this year—then we are in violation of the Kremlin!”

“Okay then, Ivan, you party pooper,” yawned Dmitry, Brezhnev’s right hand man, “what’s important that can be discussed?”

“The United States.”

“That was last time,” Dmitry said, snorting.

“That was the Mets!” Ivan screamed, banging his fist on the Very Important Table. Everyone was silent; there was not one sound. All that could be heard, while they all looked, amazed, at Ivan’s red face, was the faint whistling sound of Brezhnev’s nose as he inhaled.

“Now, I have a daring proposition for you,” Ivan began. “If you will buy it—er, I mean, agree on it, we can conquer the world. It came to me while I was getting ready for bed last night. I took off my pants. Then I put them on again. Then, realizing my absence of mind, I took them off once more. Then again I put them on unthinkingly. I did this eleven times before finally going to bed with them on, too exhausted to try again. I said to myself, “We are a weak people, we Russians. Oh, we can blow the world to smithereens without having to tip our hats, but so what—the United States can do the same without tipping theirs. I speak figuratively, of course, for those of you I see trying to figure that out. There is one thing standing in our way, though. We cannot beat the United States because they have God and we only have the government. Oh, the government is a wondrous thing, I beg of you, Mr. Brezhnev, better, even better than God, of course, in a practical, efficient way, but—” (he cleared his throat loudly) “not when it comes to rolling in the bucks, not when it comes to popularity and glory. We always see it in the movies, how God is for the good old United States. They have all the religious leaders on their side and the Pope on their side. If we can understand why God likes them so much, if we can understand what makes God tick, we can beat Him. Once we knock off God, we can conquer the world!”

“Very interesting, Ivan,” Brezhnev said after a long pause. “But you know I get big headaches when I think of God.”

“You don’t have to,” Ivan said. His eyes were blazing now. He motioned at the door and a man appeared from out of the shadows, a slight man with greasy hair and bushy eyebrows and big eyes. “This is a spy,” Ivan said. “And he is going to find out about God for us.”

All of the men stopped chewing their cakes simultaneously and turned their eyes on the spy, who bowed down slowly and said, “Gentlemen.”

***

His name was Yoramin Rhezvinkski, and he had been a spy since the age of six—not a professional spy, mind you, just a household one as a youngster. Such were his talents, however, at such an early age, that he drove his family half mad. As soon as he could write he was filling memo pads with the details of the events in his household and sending them to the Kremlin. Fortunately for Yoramin’s father, who described himself as being at his wit’s end every moment since Yoramin was born, the evidence against his family was not substantial. For instance, Yoramin noted that his father wore a moose head to bed. This did not draw attention from the government, although some members, including Brezhnev himself, wore a moose head to bed in anticipation of its benefits. There were none. Instead, when Brezhnev awoke the next morning, he thought he was a moose, and as he looked at himself in the mirror, he said, “At least it’s not hunting season; what a target I’d make in the middle of Moscow,” before realizing what was really going on.

Yoramin became an exchange student and went to school in the United States for a year before returning with a sack of filled notebooks containing his observations, complete conversations with professors and students, and some jokes and riddles he’d heard. He sent these notebooks to Brezhnev, but Leonid, remembering his moose head scare, sent the notebooks back with a harsh warning not to send him anything again.

This discouraged Yoramin greatly, and he walked the streets of Moscow, depressed. He had taken up with his parents again, but spent as little time as possible with them. Though despondent about his apparent failure as a spy, he would not give up hope and sent his notes to various government officials in the hope of getting noticed. They always wound up in the hands of Brezhnev again, and Brezhnev always sent them back with a stricter warning each time.

Finally, Ivan Spatulishnotskutchkinitski turned up at Yoramin’s door one evening and described his scheme for defeating the United States through finding out about God and destroying Him.

“I’m a spy,” Yoramin declared, “not an evangelist.”

“All you have to do is inform us about what you find out. I have seen your work. You are very detailed and observant, and your jokes and riddles are excellent, but I saw nothing about God. I know He goes over big over there, so I want you to go back there, as a student again, and do your spying thing. I want the whole poop. Now… I’ve made all the arrangements. All we have to do is convince Brezhnev.”

“You convince him. He’ll kill me.”

“Don’t worry about the moose head incident. We’ll give you a fake name. How about Nikolai Ivanovich? He’s never seen you.”

“Do you know what you’re saying?” Yoramin said, aghast.

“No,” Ivan retorted.

“If they find out, we’re both dead men. They have records, photos—”

“Big deal. You naïve little spy. Brezhnev will never double check me. Me? Ivan Spatulishnotskutchkinitski? Now, come on, let’s go. To the Kremlin, and then… the United States of America!” Ivan laughed explosively, like a demon, his eyes wild, triumphant.

“Just a minute. Could I finish my blintz first?” Yoramin asked.

***

Before we learn of Yoramin’s adventures in the United States, let us have a look at poor Ivan Spatulishnotskutchkiniski’s fate.

After having successfully convinced Brezhnev, and while Yoramin was on his way to the United States, gone for five hours already, Ivan enjoyed dinner over at Brezhnev’s Eating Room. He sat back in his chair and belched. Brezhnev, sitting across from him, belched too, and both men seemed to be admiring one another’s belching abilities. In between belches, however, Leonid surveyed Ivan carefully. Then, after musing silently for twenty minutes or so, he spoke:

“The spy you introduced me to seems awfully familiar.”

Ivan laughed loudly. “He is just your average run of the mill spy. He will succeed in his mission, though, I assure you, Leo. May I call you Leo?”

Brezhnev growled.

“I just mean, he is a great spy, Mr. Leonid—Mr. Brezhnev,” Ivan stammered.

Brezhnev nodded, sinking his chin into his fist and staring into Ivan’s eyes. Ivan belched again, but Brezhnev did not stir. Ivan started sweating profusely as Brezhnev moved his eyes to within two inches of Ivan’s eyes and spoke slowly.

“When you introduced this spy before, I noticed something very familiar about his manner of language. In everything he said, he seemed to have the idea that he wanted to prove himself as a spy. And when I mentioned the incident from long ago, when that crazy kid drove my colleagues half crazy with that story of his father wearing a moose head to bed, his choking fit was very suspicious to me.” Ivan had loosened his collar and looked at the ceiling, whistling to himself. “As though he was not who you said he was,” Brezhnev added, with emphasis.

Ivan fell at Brezhnev’s feet. “Please, Leonid! All I wanted to do was save the country. Nay, cause it’s triumph. I knew you wouldn’t approve of him, but he’s the best spy I’ve ever come across. I had to do it!”

“You are a stupid man, Ivan. Why did you confess? You could have simply said, ‘I didn’t know who he was. He came to me and gave me the name Nikolai Ivanovich. How was I to know?’”

Ivan looked up. “That’s right. What a blockhead I am. Then how about I say that? I didn’t know who he was. He just came to me—”

Brezhnev waved his hand, shaking his head. “It’s too late, Ivan.”

***

Ivan’s fate was clear, but for Yoramin, Fate was floating over and about his Being, calling itself Destiny and beckoning him to follow. So he followed what he thought was his Destiny to the United States, to New York, but he got on the wrong plane and landed in Chicago. When he finally reached New York City by train the next morning, leaving his Destiny behind to catch another train, he was determined to begin his mission immediately. After buying a tea with lemon, he surveyed the sky, but found it looked no different from the sky in Russia. How else could he tell if God liked this better than his own country? He was stumped and considered giving up. “Me? A spy of the first degree, stumped?” he cried to himself. He wanted to dash his brains out on the sidewalk. But first he paced up and down the same city block for an hour, thinking. He needed a place to stay, to sleep and eat and think and hide if necessary. And the city was no place to stay for sure. So he went to Long Island by train and slept in garbage cans for a couple of nights before he came upon a church, a large majestic building of white stone. Boy, whoever lives here must be loaded! he thought. He knocked on the door of a section branched off from the church. A man answered. He wore a black shirt with a piece of white towel paper wrapped and taped around his neck half-way up. He greeted Yoramin with a gap-toothed smile. “Hello, I am Father Don Rickles,” he said.

“And I am Yora—I am Sam Jones,” Yoramin declared.

“May I help you?”

“I am poor and broke and broken-hearted and need a place to sleep.”

“Why don’t you try the Salvation Army? What does this place look like, a hotel? Just kidding. Come on in.”

Yoramin (disgusted, then put-off, then frightened, then pleased) entered and found himself in a small office with a white marble floor.

“I have been sleeping in garbage cans. I have eaten nothing since coming from Rus—from, er, from the city.”

“I see. Well, this is your home for as long as you wish. I need someone to talk to since Father Spuds Devlin left for another church.”

Father Don Rickles began leading Yoramin through a hallway to a room. “I can never understand how anyone can leave places so easily, how people can change from one part of their lives to another and not be saddened over it.”

“Unless there’s a woman who causes it,” Yoramin muttered.

“You mean the leaving?”

“Yes. I left my home because of a woman. Dark hair, dark eyes, a cute little mole on her cheek, a wonderful lisp. Five feet of sweetness, my sweet Katerina. I miss her. And she was going to marry me, but she married another man. A mouse of a man with an annoying mustache that I wanted to pull from both sides with all my might! He had a good job and a lot of money, so she married him. I had nothing, but she loved me! Me! And so I left because I could no longer stand the sight of her, or even of the same trees I saw every day while I foolishly believed she would marry me.”

“I see.”

“I hate her and all women, the liars! I want to catapult them all into the sea. All of them!”

“Sam, no.”

“Katerina first, and may she go the farthest and cause the biggest splash.”

“Not at five feet she won’t.”

“I’ll make her splash the most!”

“You are too controlling, too bitter…”

“Oh, you’re right.” Yoramin patted Father Don Rickles weakly on the shoulder. “You are right, my good Father. I’m really despicable, am I not? I loathe myself for thinking this way. She is the sweetest woman on earth and I love her. I want to bash my own brains out with a club!”

“Oh no, don’t do—”

“But I won’t because I love life too much. I love it so much I am always holding back tears of joy. The simplest things make me go to pieces. A leaf on a tree. Two sweet potatoes. A tic.”

“I don’t underst—”

“Oh, I don’t know how to explain. How can I tell you what’s in my broken heart! It would take ten years not counting meals to explain. I want to just pluck my eyes out!”

“No!”

“I want to smash my head into a wall! I want to pull a dumpster on top of myself! I want to extract… each toenail from my left foot one at a time in slow motion!”

“Enough,” Father Don Rickles said firmly, switching the lights of the room off and on, off and on.

“But you don’t understand. I just want to die!”

“Die? Don’t say that. That’s all I need. Every day another funeral; each day another old man or woman dies with the histories of their lives still on their failing lips. I am tired of death. If I knew I was going to be around it so much I would have become a doctor, or a cook.”

Part 1 · Part 2 · Part 3