It happened a long time ago, in the early 70s, shortly after the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia. I had been invited to make several guest bodybuilding appearances in Belgrade, Bratislava, Munich and some other East European venues with forgettable names. At the time I was resident in the UK with two or three top European titles to my name. Accompanying me on my tour was a former Mr. America with Yugoslav roots, named Ludwig Schusterich. At the recalled time he was the CEO at the English branch of Weider International. Also with me was Bob Sweeney, owner of a chain of gyms in the north of England, a close friend and incorrigible prankster, and three gym buddies with their girlfriends whose identities I had better keep to myself.
For me one of the highlights of the politically eye-opening tour (grotesque reminders of the Soviet invasion littered the roadways, armed patrols and tanks everywhere) was my introduction in Belgrade to a self-declared Rick Wayne fan, in his mind a future champion in his own right. Within minutes of our meeting he volunteered to show Bob Sweeney and me around during our 3-day stay. He had spent time in Southern California and quite obviously had given his heart to the City of Lost Angels.
He spoke fluent English as happily he relived for our benefit his experiences at Venice Beach, in Santa Monica, and other locales familiar to bodybuilding fans everywhere, thanks to Muscle Builder, at the time the most popular of Joe Weider’s several publications. What a name dropper was my new acquaintance. His vivid recollections at times bordered on the phantasmagorical. By all he said, he had formed close ties with most of the Muscle Beach crowd, all of whom he referred to only by their first names.
He hardly mentioned his own city, not even its recent history—until my curiosity got the best of me during our final dinner together, when I asked him why every restaurant we’d visited featured a particular larger than life photograph or painting. “Oh,” he said, sotto voce, “that’s our great leader Marshall Tito.” He paused, scanned the room before adding under his breath: “Man, what a prick!”
When we were alone Bob and I had often discussed our friend’s East European accent with its curious hint of Texarkana. We imagined he’d picked it up from the several old Hollywood westerns he claimed to have seen countless times while growing up in Belgrade, featuring such stars as Roy Rogers, Gabby Hayes, Tom Mix, Gary Cooper. We both were struck by how strong was his native sound when he identified his country’s leader—but not when he spoke that last sentence: Man, what a prick! Pure Humphrey Bogart at his most menacing. The last word, especially.
During the time I lived in the U.K. it was quite uncommon to hear Londoners, even in halfway polite company, refer to an older person as “a prick.” A disagreeable pensioner, for example, might be considered “an old fart.” Or “an old fogey.” Or “an old geezer,” if he was someone’s grumpy grandad. Never that other word! Of course Bob and I had seen many magazine and newspaper images of Tito before our arrival in Belgrade. But always he’d appeared to my young eyes not unlike a fossil, not nearly as vivant as depicted in those pictures that in Belgrade were ubiquitous. I returned to our friend’s favorite topic.
He said he had twice been to the United States, both times to Los Angeles, and loved all he beheld. The general laid back attitude, the way he couldn’t tell rich from poor, that everyone had on blue jeans of various lengths, whether behind the wheel of a Porsche, a Volkswagen or aboard roller skates. He liked nothing better than dropping by the gyms for a workout or to gawk at the champions he recognized from their pictures in the magazines.
“So why didn’t you stay over there?” I teased. “Why did you return to beat-up old Belgrade?”
Feigning amazement at my question, he mimicked me: “Because in beat-up old Belgrade, Mr. Wayne, I have family.”
“You married?” He said he was not and wouldn’t be for the foreseeable future. An engineering student, he’d only recently turned twenty-two. Again he lowered his voice: “Many of my friends wouldn’t be stuck here but for their relatives. Their parents, sisters, cousins, grandparents.” He paused, as if resurrecting a faded memory. “They’re all gonna die here,” he said, exactly like Gary Cooper in High Noon.
“I don’t get what you’re saying,” I persisted. “The young people don’t want to leave their relatives behind?”
He bowed his head, cupped his chin in his hands, elbows on either side of the bowl in front of him, eyes shut. He took a deep breath, exhaled, turned to face me with eyes wide open. “We are permitted to leave but for only a few weeks at a time. Sometimes for a few days, depending on the situation. But staying away is out of the question.”
He still hadn’t said why. Bob tried his luck. “What prevented you from staying in the States if you loved being over there as much as you say?”
He stopped eating, motioned with his head at the large painting on a wall left of where we were seated. “Because if I did, gentlemen, he would kill all of my family,” he whispered, eyes focused on his barely touched goulash. “He would murder them, one by one, until I decided to return. And then I would be shot in front of my closest relatives and others who might be thinking about leaving!”
He recalled friends who had made the supreme sacrifice. Friends with whom he’d attended high school and college. Among them young women who now featured in the world’s leading fashion magazines, models with home addresses on New York’s east side. Some had made their way to Los Angeles—and Hollywood. He abruptly interrupted his reverie, asked politely to be excused. I watched as he headed toward the men’s room. Seconds earlier, even in a sitting position his shoulders appeared muscular, broad—and proud. He held his chest up high. Now, he slouched. The regular spring in his walk had deserted. He seemed round-shouldered, weak in the knees. He dragged his feet. What a time for the devil in Bob Sweeney to show up.
“Listen,” hissed the devil, leaning over from the other side of our table. “When he gets back I want you to tell him I’m a KGB agent based in London.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Never mind,” he chuckled. “Just do it and see what happens.”
We were digging into our mixed-fruit dessert when I signaled a nearby waitress. Could I borrow her pen for a minute and a bit paper? While Bob pretended to poke around in his wallet, I scribbled: “Careful, what you say. Bob’s a spy for the Russians.” I surreptitiously lowered my hand and signaled with my eyes to our friend, at the same time nudging him with my left knee under the table. He caught on fast, grabbed the bit of paper, crumpled it in his fist, then without a word walked away from the table.
He had barely gone ten feet, when Bob let out a gurgling sound straight out of who the hell knows. Not loud, but loaded with mischief. At one point he grabbed his napkin, pressed it against his mouth to mute his laugh, then he dabbed the tears from his wicked blue eyes. He recovered suddenly, pretended to accidentally drop his napkin. I turned around to see our friend approaching. He appeared downcast. His Coppertoned features had undergone a sea change. Now he appeared ashen, his eyes dull, lips dry. As he took his seat next to me he seemed to be trembling.
“You all right?” I asked, genuinely concerned. He nodded, poked at his dessert but never once lifted his fork to his mouth. I sneaked a questioning glance at Bob. His new demeanor brought to mind a brat concerned that he may have taken his latest prank several irreversible steps too far, at possible great expense to a younger sibling.
I turned to face our friend, grabbed his shoulder and stuttered: “Loo-look, I was only pull-pulling your leg. Bob’s the owner of five gyms in the U.K., with no time for much else. He’s no spy.” Bob moved in to reassure him. “We were just kidding, like. Everything’s good.”
I couldn’t back in the day, and so many years later I still cannot find the words to properly describe the look that overtook our friend from Belgrade upon learning he’d been pranked. I’ve tried countless times since to picture myself gagged and strapped to that often visited proverbial harder place, unable to move a muscle. Meanwhile a monster rock is rolling downhill straight at me. I close my eyes, convinced I’m about to take my final breath. But nothing happens. I can’t believe what I see when hesitantly I open my eyes: the assumed unstoppable force has come to a dead halt mere inches from me. I’m alive! I’ve been given another shot at life. That’s about as close as I can come to explaining how I imagine it must’ve been for our young friend in Belgrade.
I still can see him at that packed restaurant so many years ago, my left hand gripping his right shoulder, Bob desperately trying to undo what he’d inspired, doing his utmost to convince our friend that everything he’d told us about life under Tito would always be strictly between us. I still can feel the young man shaking all over nevertheless.
As I write a politician is on the radio telling the nation that the government intends to permit sick Chinese visitors to participate in a horse race scheduled for February 22—Independence Day. At time of writing the government has issued no such statement. I am reminded that while preparations for last year’s inaugural race were underway, the same politician and others connected to his party were all over the Internet spreading outrageous propaganda, including that three imported thoroughbred horses stabled in Vieux Fort had died from unspecified diseases—all of it calculated fake news. As I write a recent statement by a senator at a vigil related to the murder of a friend and party colleague is being weaponized by the government’s opposition.
The senator’s expressed disturbing remarks are in tune with highly publicized extremely sensitive revelations by a former prime minister. I refer here to the so-called IMPACS report, a large portion of which was broadcast to the world on the evening of 8 March 2015, this included: “I can report that the findings of the investigators are extremely damning. I will state some of these findings tonight to bring home to you the extreme gravity of this matter. These findings relate not only to those officers who were involved in the operations but additionally members of the high command of the police force who may have been involved in covering up matters . . . More alarmingly, the investigators report all the shootings reviewed were fake encounters staged by the police to legitimize their actions.”
Additionally: “Revealingly, the report suggests that the crime problem in Saint Lucia is facilitated by corrupt politicians, government officials, business persons and police officers!” In October 2018 the wife of a ranking police officer connected with the report was fatally shot at home. While there have been no arrests, the victim’s husband has hinted at assassination possibly related to some of the public statements by the prime minister in 2015.
Could the senator too have been thinking about the IMPACS report when at the earlier cited vigil she declared: “Crime is big business in Saint Lucia. It is big business in this country. It is big business and it is driven by people way up in the hierarchy of this country. These are the people that pay people to kill people . . . They [young citizens] need to stop killing each other. They are not the real problem; they are just the result of the problem. It is the people who are financing crime . . . who are sending young people to commit crime . . . who must pay. People think that when they do things in the dark it won’t come out . . . but somebody will pay for what happened to . . .”
When it comes to the facilitators of crime in our country, there is little difference between what a former prime minister told the world in 2015 and what the senator said at the recalled recent vigil. In 2018, Kenny Anthony warned sitting Prime Minister Chastanet that should he carry out his stated promise to investigate the Grynberg issue he, the former PM, “will personally make sure you reap the whirlwind!” To date, there has been no further word on the matter from Chastanet!
Trust Oscar Wilde to offer the following improvement on Voltaire’s gem: “I may not
agree with you but I will defend to the death your right to make an ass of yourself.” Rather than seeking remedies for what’s killing Saint Lucia, some of the nation’s leading citizens are busily exercising the right attributed to them by the revered author of The Importance of Being Earnest. I take this opportunity yet again to implore them not to take for granted our rights and freedoms. To paraphrase the social activist Naomi Klein: “Free speech is meaningless if the political cacophony has risen to the point where no one can hear you.” I know my friend in Belgrade would readily agree!
